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

a) references to things that lay outside this series and/or season b) shouting c) running.
-- Tracer Hand, Sunday, 29 June 2008 11:03 (10 hours ago) Link

I have a really hard time following the plot of any Doctor Who episode that is concerned with the "main" storyline or is not a self-contained episode. I mean, seriously, I just don't understand anything that's going on and this comment really nails it.

One thing I'm sure of, from start to finish, is that the music in nu-Doctor Who has been categorically awful. Does every scene need to be so amped up? Maybe if the music was better, less obtrusive, and more atmospheric, the characters wouldn't need to shout all the time. Imagine all the same scenes but with creepy, minimal synthesizer sounds!

Things that need to happen in order for me to be satisfied:

- Tennant faces off with Davros
- Rose's big gun-toting megareturn pays off in some way far greater than 'omg Doctor at last i has fuond you'
- Donna cheats certain death and/or dies
- Donna somehow gets gramps into the TARDIS and gives him a quick tour of the universe
- A Face of Boe reference is dropped in somewhere
- Bad Wolf is fucking explained properly

I like the idea of Tennant being 10 and 11! Maybe he's tired of playing the character the same way? Maybe we get a petulant, effeminate doctor this time? I agree on the hand; too many nods that direction.

NO! What you end up with is an A Doctor and a B Doctor, like in the EDA books. It works in books when it's only spods like me reading them, but asking the average punter to accept same-Doctor-different-character is too great a reach. Not to mention that changing what's commonly regarded as the best Doctor ever for the sake of a cliffhanger would be clinically dumb.

except it might be a handy way to exchange the shift in the show's tone that will come (inevitably) with the bringing-on of a new helmsman, e.g. moffett

Change of helmsman should be transparent. Of the 10 million Britishers who watch it every week, only about 40,000 know or even care.

But surely having Tennant as 10 AND 11 would be seen as shark-jump?

Donna somehow gets gramps into the TARDIS and gives him a quick tour of the universe

must happen!

Hmm, how about they cgi in peter cushing as 11 take briars to the fountain of youth and hey presto: bbc save money on one of next year's specials.

Doctor Who cannot jump the shark. Or at least it has already jumped it so many times in its past that the concept is meaningless.

Doctor Who Red and Doctor Who Blue!

(Note DAVid Tennant + ROSe = DAVROS)

for those of us not au fait with Who history, it was a little confusing sorting out Red Dalek, Davros, pulsating brain on throne, etc

i also failed to grasp how being one second behind the timeline of the earth made the doctor able to instantly teleport to the earth's new location, or why/how the tardis wound up in "the medusa cascade" to begin with, or why that's interesting

Isn't Red Dalek new, then? The last time Davros popped up, back in the 80s, he was Emperor Dalek himself, with his top half disguised inside a big dome.

granted, when i watched this i was pretty drunk

i thought this was a bit predictably bobbins which is a shame - too many characters, they over-used the harriet jones joke and her inclusion/exit felt lacklustre (tho i suppose she would be the only one who could unite them all), supreme dalek seems pointless so far and the regeneration troublesome because we know DT sticks around so it felt like a contrived obstacle that ultimately won't mean anything (other than a means of him being able to get with Rose, BUT WHO WANTS THAT?) rather than genuinely exciting like The Master turning from Jacobi to Simm. Davro top tho yes.

actually it was a good advert for the Sarah Jane show (not so much for Torchwood). Mr Smith rocks.

I was wondering if Red Robot Supreme Dalek will end up turning on its creator for not being Dalek enough - it was already getting suspicious that Davros was paying too much attention to Dalek Caan.

Pulsating brain is Dalek Caan, who was in the Cult of Skaro (who were fighting the Cyberman at the end of series 2 and buiding the Empire State in series 3). The last time we saw him he was an ordinary dalek, he's been off searching the universe for Davros and has gone all mad and prophetic.

xpost

I was wondering if Red Robot Supreme Dalek will end up turning on its creator for not being Dalek enough - it was already getting suspicious that Davros was paying too much attention to Dalek Caan.

This was my though. There was a lot of tension between the three and noticably no Dalek said 'I Obey'. It could all break down because Davros wants to destroy reality and the supreme Dalek, being a Dalek wants to rule it.

OK so it was Hokum, but good Hokum.

yeah that about sums it up for me, and it's about the best i could expect from russell t.

supreme dalek was a bit rubb, "oh let's just stick a few girders on".

when they finally located earth, why did tardis go on fire and the doctor shout "WE'RE TRAVELLING IN TIME!!!" - um yup? that's what you do?

IN THROUGH

why did tardis go on fire and the doctor shout "WE'RE TRAVELLING IN TIME!!!"

god knows - that's where i realized i truly was lost

And then suddenly they just weren't on fire any more. WHOA FLAMES SCARY MALFUNCTION oh look it's all fine now, no need to mention it. I have no idea about the one second thing at all. Maybe these things aren't there to be thought about (the bits of the plot I could actually follow obviously weren't) but it would be nice not to be scratching my head hoping that they don't turn out to be vital plot points.

This and no reference at all to last week's Bad Wolf ending = are you guys even trying to join these seams up?

I didn't mind the episode but it felt rather thrown together, opportunities missed. As for the cliffhanger, I'd like to have Tennant stick around, but I suspect that if he does then whatever the rewind hinges on will be, y'know, a bit lame. As was his death in the first place. Well, we'll see.

Last night I dreamed that Peter Davidson came back, sitting on a sofa. Colin Baker too but not Sylvester McCoy because he was dead.

(he's not dead is he?)

No, he's occasionally spotted in my local.

Oh good. I misspelled Davison. Sorry.

why did tardis go on fire and the doctor shout "WE'RE TRAVELLING IN TIME!!!"

was it because they were travelling ONE SECOND forward in time in order to actually see the planets? even the TARDIS was so confused it caught fire.

I thought maybe it was the Doctor just being all anti-blasé. Like us being excited every time we take off in an aeroplane and see the people become little ants.

They travelled one second forward in time... over the course of five seconds of wailing, Trek-esque lurching and flames? Magic!

Don't make me iplayer this, because I'm not going to understand it the second time either.

I think the difficulty was not that they were traveling one second in time that they were jumping 1 second out of sync with the rest of the universe.

Possibly the flames were because the Doctor did not hit it wi'hammer.

He should have shouted "We're jumping 1 second out of sync with the rest of the universe!"

That intergalactic police bunch was well useless. Was it supposed to be a dig at the UN?

Also, D- for interpersonal skills. "No, I meant your loss to come".

I thought the SP woman was Miranda Richardson. she wanted the Doctor to lead them into battle against the Daleks tho right? the whole "okay let me just fetch something...SLAM, ESCAPE" was amusing tho

yeah the tardis went on fire because they went 1 second out of sync with the rest of the universe but how it repaired itself afterwards is a mystery.

so do we know how stealing 27 planets in one universe destroys all other universes yet?

By using them as an engine, how? I don't know.

is the lost moon of poosh a planet? this could scupper everything

heavy and round is all it needs to be I think.

so what's the medusa cascade then (other than it's out of sync and that the doctor was there as a time kid)? i know it's been mentioned in a couple of other episodes but can't remember in what context.

A "rift in space and time" by all accounts

I think he takes companions there on hot dates, look at the beautiful space feature whilst I cop a feel up your blouse kind of thing.

Is there Tennant/Tate fanfic? I don't think I need an answer to that question.

oh god please no.

a lot of trouble could be avoided if the Doctor just found a way to get rid of the Daleks' emergency temporal shift, which has apparently been used to escape the time war, the void between universes, re-entering the time-locked time war, etc etc...

played this yesterday

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2b/Dalekattackgame.jpg

not very good :(

the whole "okay let me just fetch something...SLAM, ESCAPE" was amusing tho

he pulls that trick with somebody else doesn't he? a potential companion?

Did he not do it to Mr Copper, who still decided to go and set up the foundation that paid for Harriet Jones' supercomputer?