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

i've been feeling self-parody fatigue from RTD over these last specials, it's like a drinking game: the Doctor expresses disdain of guns, drink! the Doctor extends bizarre mercy to clearly dangerous enemy, drink! i see from the trailer that the gun thing is going somewhere next week, which is nice because my god has that topic been hammered into the ground.

i liked the soppy conversation in the cafe, I thought having Wilf there gave it more power than your typical sad-Doctor-is-sad scene. also i still miss the days when the Doctor and Donna just sailed around, having fun and being bros, so I liked how tangibly and palpably he seemed to miss Donna in that scene -- less moony and emo, like when he missed Rose, and more "goddammit this sucks."

rtd doesn't even bother to explain shit anymore. lol we r bringing master back with magik poshuns! lol I have anti poshun! oh lol apparently it didn't work bekos here is master!

the master becoming everyone on earth was fun but I suspect that will be the only fun moment in the whole two hours.

there's a point during Tennant's run where the whole thing descended into self-parody, dunno when exactly.

Think it was in Fear Her when he picked up the Olympic torch.

Did Timothy Dalton really have to shout with spittle flying out of his mouth?
Anyway, they will have to tie up the bits with the lady that only Bernard Cribbens seems to see, and the skikey aliens. Yes, the frist 20 minutes were pretty lame, but I think Simm is doing a great job as the master, despite some occasionally clunky lines. At least the special effects for the Master are pretty cool. I'm looking forward the second part, and not really looking forward to the Moffat/big-headed Matt Smith era. His head is just too big! dude looks like a caveman with his huge cranial ridge and sunken-eyes, too.

didn't really like this because (warning some petty quibbles/questions herein):

- why can the master now fly around and shoot lightning?
- lucy saxon stuff seemed pointless other than to explain his occasionally visible skull (just a visual gimmick? meh - might've been cooler without the eyeballs tho) and 'incomplete' rebirth
- lack of decent dialogue between him and the doctor so far
- pretty lame attempts to disguise himself so people wouldn't recognise him as the disappeared saxon (spiky blonde hair and a hoody, is that it?)
- the rapidly shaking heads was another dumb gimmick and went on too long (as did the laughter at the end)
- why is the master so into meat (other than just being more insane than ever)?
- stfu about obama
- why would naysmith only want immortality for his boring daughter?
- spiky green dudes also pointless so far
- the doctor being "shot"/left for dead - wouldn't naysmith have known who he was and taken him prisoner too?

i missed this 2 heartbeats (is this the 'drums'?) = 4 "knocks" thing and thought it just referred to the master clanging the oildrum 4 times (which would've been weak)

i could've just put 'rtd' for all of that tho. but cribbins, cafe, dalton/timelords good, and tennant himself was fine.

i think we can all agree that having four not-that-special specials is a bad idea. these individual episodes really haven't been that terrible all things considered but each one was sooo heavily hyped up and of course RTD felt like he needed to included cringe-y lonely doctor angst scenes in each one because he can't seem to figure out any other way to get the audience to continue rooting for his lead character, and OTT action sequences that kind of look awesome but kind of don't make sense either that it all feels like one big pile of meh.

ok the last one wasn't that hyped up at all i think but it felt like it was due to the long wait in between.

the 4 knocks is either the heartbeatings of two time lords, or that lady in the previews at the end of the episode who's clacking her fingers on the table 4 times, or something else, as in 'this doctor' dies but obviously there will be more doctor who episodes, just not made by RTD and Tennant. I think the idea of specials is fine, though, and kind of prefer them to an ongoing episodic series.

Time Lords have 2 hearts, 4 knocks = heartbeating of 1 Time Lord. But see earlier point about "wouldn't that be unremarkable?"

Would that be unremarkable? Hmm, perhaps, but maybe this is asking too much from RTD et al., - maybe a thing like this might be caught on a Star Trek script, or better yet, in very serious Sci-Fi novels or films, but not by RTD & BBC, who are, let's face it, trying to entertain families & kiddies, not the hardcore SF constituency exclusively. It's not like any non-human language in Doctor Who is actually made by linguists, like Klingon is. They probably have some type of continuity editor, but are they as thorough as ST? Nahh. It's whatever RTD feels 'works', I would guess. Am I wrong? (Sorry if this post makes me sound like an asshole).

the rapidly shaking heads was another dumb gimmick

^The best bit imo.

The best bit was the intro voice over with its 'Christmas is a pagan festival you dumb idiots' line and all the references to trials without juries and rendition flights. Also skiffle bands.

Hope the second part explains the 'sainted physician' gumpfh at the beginning.

And the stuff about the economy and homeless mental people being hungry at Christmas.

Also I thought the '4 knocks' thing was when the Doctor and the Master bumped heads and he hears the Master's drumming.

Perhaps the OTT Obama stuff was to demonstrate that rich black guy/boring daughter were not ciphers for Obamas (a bunch of Americans at my dinner yesterday thought it was both well done and cheesy at the same time, all missing was 'let me be clear' soundbite) yes also this will be on BBC America tonight.

never under-estimate RTD's ability to ruin a story with an unbelievably shitty deus ex machina conclusion.

OTM. See every season finale from S3 onwards. S1 did this too, but had enough set up that it felt somewhat earned.

I feel like I always love RTD's ideas and find his execution mind-bogglingly frustrating. Would it be too much to ask to have a few more moments like that one in the pub, and maybe not feel the need to bring on MORE companions besides Donna and Wilf?

timelord wtf is an anagram of wilfred mott

timelord ftw, more like.

The best bit was the intro voice over with its 'Christmas is a pagan festival you dumb idiots' line

This was terrible, so heavy handed.

Master's resurrection and Lucy Saxon scene = WANK
Cribbins and Tennant in the cafe = great
Master as skeletal cannibal = WANK
Ood scenes = WANK
Oblivious Donna wandering around = great
Gate that can heal other planets = oh hey I wonder which planets you're planning on bringing back here? Gallifrey and Skaro perhaps?
Cribbins as possible secret Timelord trojan horse = could be good
Something much bigger than the Master = Daleks plus Cybermen vs every nu-Who companion ever except Martha, surely?
Timothy Dalton voiceovers = WANK
Whole planet of Masters = OMG AWESOME
Timothy Dalton as King Timelord Dude = OMG AWESOME

Overall it felt like a standard issue Rusty big build-up... 50 minutes of "what is this shit, come on RTD you know you can do better than this" followed by 10 minutes of "OMG AWESOME".

Prediction - Tennant Doctor actually dies, Doctor-Donna enables him to regenerate into Matt Smith.

Also Donna Temple-Noble is a Timelord pun as well surely?

ooh, that last bit's quite a good prediction*. there must have been a point to him mentioning to Wilf in the cafe about dying vs regeneration (other than explaining how all the other timelords are dead, except they possibly aren't...)

the BBC machine's going totally overboard on Tennant right now, I wonder if this is a smokescreen to stop everyone wondering about Billie/Barrowman/Martha/Micky/Sarah-Jane/Gwen etc? They have to explain them all away, right?

xpost * the regen thing - I did mention the temple-noble thing at the time to disinterested other half, but forgot by the time I got to the internetz where people care

Billie/Barrowman/Martha/Micky/Sarah-Jane/Gwen etc? They have to explain them all away, right?

Billie - surely turns up at some point, hopefully to get killed off
Barrowman - the end of the last Torchwood was a pretty good ending but there'll be more of it surely? It's only just got good.
Martha - doesn't RTD hate her or something?
Mickey - oh come on, no one is seriously wondering what happened to Mickey
Sarah-Jane - will probably gamely go on fighting aliens on prime time kids TV
Gwen - who cares?

yeah, but Rusty likes to explain everything away, and these are people who all turn up when shit goes down, so he'll need some reason in his head for why they don't turn up if they don't turn up. and then he'll need to share it with us.

it'll be one-liners, but they'll all have to get a mention shoehorned in somewhere. Fuck's sake, he shoehorned K-9 into the last END OF EVERYTHING EVER EVERYONE TURNS UP one.

So, er, yeah, I don't mean *I* need them explained, I just mean it's more shit RTD has to cram in for himself when he's pretty much wasted about 50 minutes of his two hours explaining and doing fuck all. Which leads me to expect some everything-including-the-kitchen-sink type finale again, because we know how these things go.

If I never see the use of a prophecy in Doctor Who or, indeed, anything else ever, I will be a happier man.

Surely Sarah-Jane, Gwen et al are all part of the Master-Race now. Obviously there will be some kind of rewind switch to restore the human race, but in the meantime, it solves the problem of having to bring back old companions.
There was a longer trailer on TV this morning. Cribbins flying some kind of laser beam shooting space contraption! Tennant all bloodied up.
Also, the preview on the website - the post-credit sequence - is properly bad ass, with Timothy Dalton and the Timelords proving what a bad bunch they are. It seems they're spinning time into a loop so that they avoid the Doctor blowing them all up at the end of the Time War. But this means they're just dying over and over again, only to come back to life, or something. Bit confusing, but an interesting idea. So by coming to earth and stopping the Doctor they can end time and live forever. So some connection between the Timelords' desire for immortality and that of the rich guy and his daughter?

Anyone notice Bernard Cribbins first appearing under some sort of "We Salute The War Dead" sign -- slightly-too-obvious foreshadowing, perhaps?

Also, DT's sideburns were slightly longer than usual, which bothered me for OCD reasons.

The only thing I noticed about the war memorial was that it was all full of names like Evans and Jenkins, HI DERE WE FILM THIS IN WALES.

Something v. fishy about Cribbins being a "war veteran" with unknown connection to the Doctor and apparently shaky/repressed memory?

This is probably the worst Doctor Who episode I have ever seen, and I've seen most of the Doctor Who from the 80s, so. This season finale... is the Phantom Menace of Doctor Who.

If you've seen most of the last 4 or 5 serieses then No. Just, no.

Also please don't get horrible stupid shitty Star Wars shit in my Doctor Who.

this is the pinnacle of british culture you are dissing...everything that is great about our nation was in that brilliant and memorable episode of television

sort of not joking

Nobody's said anything about Wilf taking a revolver with him so I'll punt: thinking there's a specific reason for Doctor gun phobia explained in the plot.

if there is ANY kind of reset about to go down that cancels out the last 5 years then that would be the worst thing RTD has ever done

also do newborn babies now have Master faces? no doubt that would've stretched the CGI budget just over the edge

Masterbabies! I think all of the masters will start eating anything they can grab that is made of meat, thus killing planet by food chain abuse.

Reset of last five years would be excellent*. Have we had the Wiggy McGann regenerating into Matt Smith theory yet (possibly not, because I've just made it up right now)?

* in a really shit kind of a way

bring back wiggy mcgann

i like the theory that the woman who kept appearing to Wilf is the nu White Guardian

and that in next week's ep we see the OTHER resurrection gauntlet (from Torchwood) except this one is just used to kill

June Whitfield and the gay guy from Hi-Di-Hi - who are they really?

The rumour a couple of months ago was the woman Wilf sees is The Doctor's mother. *palmface*

Aargh, no, RTD's mommy issues are the worst.

Oh, and since I got called into action on Rusty's Knackered Timelines yesterday, I make this no earlier than Christmas 2012, given Donna has been with her new bloke for 'over a year'.

June Whitfield and the gay guy from Hi-Di-Hi - who are they really?

at the end, behind Dalton there are two people in Timelord robes covering their faces for some strange reason but i doubt it's them haha

I have had it up to here waiting for the people catalogue to be reMastered.

It is so not going to be a reset of everything that's happened on the last four years, I don't think Rusty would want to render his entire tenure inconsequential. A reset that allows the Timelords back in would be okay given that the Time War never made any sense in the first place (ie Timelords and Daleks destroyed throughout all time and space but loads of people supposedly remember them).

It also wouldn't work moving forward given that Moffatt looks like he's going to run with the River Song thing.

I wd run with River Song srsly.

I don't think it will be a reboot but I am anticipating some kind of perma-Doctor-Donna-maybe the Master? mash-up and the probably re-disappearance of most of the naughty Time Lords.