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

here's the trailer, for the non-britishers: http://blogtorwho.blogspot.com/2008/06/journeys-end-trailer.html

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

Isn't that sort of how the whole career of the Doctor started--him nicking off in a (stolen) TARDIS when he was supposed to be being responsible? And repeated in the Five Doctors for that reason.

i really kind of loved this one...normally I'm shouting at the TV when RTD takes the wheel, and maybe it was just the glee of seeing the band get back together etc, but I was all 'whee!' the whole time.

dreamed last night that my editor asked me to write an article on the disappeaing bees, and was all excited in my dream because I could use the Doctor as a source for explaining where they went. waking up was very disappointing.

use the Doctor as a sauce

resultant paste between two Doctors

am presuming donna sacrifices herself so doctor can regenerate into doctor

donna-doctor, like doner kebab but with more zest

He tried to do it to Donna at the end of The Runaway Bride, but Donna shouted at him until he came back.

this is what i'm remembering!

I think what happens to Donna will be bigger than the regeneration, it's dying/disappearing saving several parallel universes or bust.

Thought they handled the Donna thing very well in this episode, she could have slipped into the background with Rose, Martha, Jack and Sarah-Jane back but she was very much still the identifiable companion while the others were support cast, even Rose. They're certainly working up to something really important with her - more important than the Doctor even. The whole series has been "I'm just a temp" vs "I'm brilliant and clever" but the Doctor has fucked up or been ineffective on several occasions.

That one really didn't let up did it, it was sort of bash bash bash from the beginning. I'd guessed a regeneration was coming mostly due to Tom emailing and going 'DO NOT read the internet before watching Doctor Who whatever you do'. I enjoyed it but all the 'how Davros survived' and 'what was up with the bees disappearing' stuff was way too fast. They'll need to explain the former again whenever they do the Timelords revival deus ex machina.

Pretty sure the Doctor and Rose running towards each other was tongue in cheek, especially as it ended with him being zapped by a Dalek. Rose felt more superfluous than any of the others in this - didn't mind the big gun though, isn't the point that she's been fighting aliens in the parallel universe all this time? That's a bit of a nu-Who constant really, the Doctor drops people off as bigger and better people and they go on fighting the fight, rather than the Doctor drops them off and they are mostly never seen, heard of or mentioned again.

^ this I like very much, Nice to see the very developed companions go on to do very developed things.

I'd guessed a regeneration

i call bullshit

Well it was either regeneration or old Doctor surprise appearance, nothing else could really be OMG enough especially as everyone knew about Davros.

They might have nuked Billie or something. So many ways that OMG could go this series!

Re: the 1-second-into-the-future-tardis-catches-on-fire-thing , didn't Alan Garner use a similar kludge in one of his books once? Elidor, or Red Shift or something (any amount of googling has not confirmed this, so I may well just be talking crap). I think the gist of that one is almost that the universe has a refresh rate or something; the frames that are interspersed can't be seen until you shift minutely into a different temporal position. Er, yeah. Something like that. (Fuck me I'm bad at explaining things). Anyhow, I think this may have been an attempt at something similar.

Someone here has just mentioned the phrase "out of phase". They're a lot better at explaining things than I am.

TWO DAYS

God I hope a previous Doctor is in there somewhere. I don't care how they justify it.

I think I'd like it best if tennant just turns back into eccleston now, and rose and jack could be pleasantly surprised and could start laughing it off and teasing him about it and stuff, but the doc would get all upset, "no, no, this isn't meant to happen, this is NEVER meant to happen!" and then yeah, we could just spend half an ep with good old CE back, until he found a way to fix it, and then tennant would be safely back in place for next year.

Chances of this actually happening are virtually zero though, obviously.

It's just occurred to me that other than 'Daleks and Davros steal planets, everyone is back to fight them, Doctor regenerates' I haven't got a fucking clue what's going on in this episode. Need to watch again I think.

Check the sub-wave frequency. I'm transferring control of it to you... NOW.

i wanna watch this at a cinema

The regeneration's going to stop straight after the credits, with Tennant saying, "Oh. Seems like I was just vomiting nanogenes."

Then K9 zaps Davros.

can't help but wonder what this regen sequence means for what would presumably be a second, final regen sequence when DT actually does leave - would it devalue that scene or mean it would have to be rethunk somehow. that's all assuming stuff goes a certain way tho.

It's been a funny old series. I really didn't enjoy Silence in the Library and I thought Midnight was intolerably dire, but what a way to end the series! It has everything -I am so flippin' excited about Saturday.

The regen scene is troubling though - I agree that Tennent regenerating into Tennant is jumping the shark, but I guess that will happen somehow. A temporary regen into someone else (surely not Eccleston, yet who?) is most likely.

I've just been to the BBC and the rumor there is:

Fooled yah!

bah that was meant to be an amusing joke with lots of lines between the first and last. Damned white space stripping.

well, not that amusing.

In other BBC news I just passed by Jeremy Clarkson. He was complaining about the number of smoothies one can buy within a 5-minute radius of his office.

Too many? Too few?

TOO MANY - WAAAAAY TOO MANY

too many, no excuse to drive to the smoothie shop

Big smoothy drinker is old JC but only if he can gas a badger first.

I noticed the coffee bars have started doing freshly smoothed ones.

Freshly smoothed badgers?

Only by the countryfile production office, though.

Crude Oil, Polar Bear and lime is his fave.

the limes must NOT be fair trade.

He demands the man from delmonte beats the plantation workers extra hard.

Sorry, Tennant's changing into Clarkson?

Anyway, to Dr C further up - I wasn't sure about Silence In The Library either; it was a bit of a mess, maybe Moffat trying to achieve too much. Midnight was pretty compelling, I thought.

I'm mad excited about Saturday. The wife's out tonight so I'm going to watch episode 12 again and get all giddy thinking up predictions.

Your wife is not a Dr. Who fan then?

I thought that the second part of the library story was much better than the first one - the first part was a little too disjointed, with the "virtual world" segments.

SITL probably the series highlight for me (predictably) altho I could go with FOTD just as easily really

The Sontarans a series highlight here : "the bravery of fools is bravery nonetheless" has become a catchphrase in our house.

What do they call those rhino aliens again? There were some in the Shadow Proclaimation gaff last week.

Wait, got it...Judeen, yes?

The rhino aliens are Judoon, I believe. I quite liked them just standing around in the background.

Oh yes Judoon, ta.

I like those little growls they make from time to time.

I like their language. Rol gol fol bol hol jol (out).

trying to achieve too much

this is my new explanation for when i am confusing

I'm a big fan of the 'throw lots of wacky shit at the wall and see what sticks' school of sci-fi,thus loved SITL/FOTD.

not only that but they conveyed character emotion better than yer average Who - that's part of Moffat's #1 strength

great great bit of meta gaggery with the "what just happened" "you just made a cup of tea" "no no i said let's have a cup of tea and we were sitting here drinking tea" bit

ending smth of a lame repeat of eccleston's NOBODY DIED TODAY bit in s1 tho, maybe — which episode was problably the point i felt most involved in the whole thing, so hm

nobody died, just got trapped in a matrix to spend all eternity with the same five people. worse than dying, surely?