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

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.

I make this no earlier than Christmas 2012

could've had one of the old people go "heey wait isn't this that fella what carried the Olympic flame?"

this got 10m viewers to Eastenders 10.9. i just iplayered it along with another million (maybe).

not even being able to run convincingly and putting on a pair of glasses now and then but jesus john sim so awful too and the thing is they probably ASK him to be awful and everyone else who is awful but wish they would just ask them to be good for a bit and maybe it could be better

otm tbh

'now watch me jetpack away into the air and come down on a steel girder or a pile of sand or something and wait for you to catch up with me, and go rrrraaaarrr i am the master blah blah blah when you finally catch up with me' repeatx5

(i liked it)

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."

This was the only part I liked, the rest was soooo bad. I imagine RTD drinking a case of Red Bull and writing the entire script five minutes before it was due, because I really don't know else you would end up with a story like that.

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

http://www.41n93w.net/who_wars.jpg

I repeat: this episode is the Phantom Menace of Doctor Who. Incoherent plot, established characters acting in random and profoundly stupid ways, pointless melodrama, horrible dialog, gratuitous yet ineffectual use of fanwank.

blueski is OTM here

I will be the first to admit I am muy oversensitive abt shit but I thought it was really tasteless that the Master said he had the "final solution" (while in Obama's body no less!). I mean "MASTER race" is excusable bcz it is a (lame) pun but after months of "OBAMA IS HITLER DO U SEE" from dumbass shitfucks all over America for the past few months that was about the last thing I needed in a Christmas sci-fi romp, is all this Hitler language coming out of former Obama bad guy.

I just watched it an hour ago, and I still can't even believe how bad it was.

I imagine RTD drinking a case of Red Bull and writing the entire script five minutes before it was due, because I really don't know else you would end up with a story like that.

Yeah, I read about half of "The Writer's Tale," the book where RTD talks about his writing process, and it turns out his process is basically "my script was due two weeks ago and I haven't started, o shit." I sympathize because this is my writing process too, but then he goes on to suggest that this writing style actually works, and gives Voyage of the Damned as a successful example, which, no.

It gave me a little sympathy for the way "Last of the Time Lords" and "Journey's End" seemed to squander the promise of the previous episodes, because I imagine there was little time for script rewrites by then and they were basically filming a first or second draft. But I thought the whole point of doing a year of specials was to give RTD some breathing room to do things right.

idk, maybe he spent the last half of the year chained up in some deranged Ianto fan's basement and only had a few days to dash off the finale once the police let him out.

Seriously what is up with David Tennant and the way he runs?

But God bless him for doing what he can with what he's got, and the same for John Simm, who, I mean, Jesus, do you really need John fucking Simm to snarl for 45 minutes?? That's some expensive snarling!

I think DT is spoofing the amount of running required in the scripts by doing his best Pepe le Pew impersonation.

was odd the master talking about "missing the drums" - you've not existed since being shot so how can you feel that loss? maybe he was conscious in the void/hell.

wanna know Moffat's writing process. "the whole thing comes to me in beautifully clever and coherent dreams and i just jot it all down while still asleep."

ledge makes a good point about the anti-potion potion not really, uh, working. The Master must have had an anti-anti-potion potion.

My favorite line was when the Master sees the anti-potion potion, looks suitably alarmed, and says something along the lines of "I forbid you to do that!"

I mean, when has that ever stopped anyone in the history of film or television? "Well I was just about to blow up the world but someone has just told me it's forbidden. Drat." I got through that part by just telling myself it was a Hammer film.

im the master an i laff and growl lol ;P

Also? Murray Gold should be horsewhipped for that score. He's usually pretty bad, but this was bad even by his standards.

starting to think including Obama was reasonable as it's been the only major optimistic political turn of events since Who returned. this doesn't excuse having numerous london background characters talking about him as messianic saviour of the world. likely RTD was just hammering this in a 'lol isn't it funny that they're/we're talking about Obama saving the world when in fact the Doctor will be doing literally just that again teehee' way, as if it could be anything other than annoying as fuck. but i can see the 'logic' of bringing in an IRL political figure at this point despite that (it's different re the Queen who has been the Queen since original Who began and referred to several times in the past) - and presumably Moffat will run with it.

but RTD please take that annoying american newsreader you insist on using EVERY TIME EVEN IN TORCHWOOD with you