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

Added: Friday, 1 January, 2010, 20:20 GMT 20:20 UK

The script writers need to be told that their stories will be rejected if Deux ex Machina is used to solve plots.

And please - no more running around screaming for supposed suspense or drawn out scenes attempting to give it gravitas. It is all so light-weight and badly written.

A true reflection of British society; dumbed down, celebrity driven and all gloss no substance.

John Byng

Recommended by 6 people

An uneven episode, but glad RTD gave Donna et al decent send offs. He got the emo stuff about right I think. It wasn't too mawkish, and was genuinely touching. Just a shame about the awful music. Nice to see Donna happy and while the Mickey/Martha thing was cute. Nice Sontaran cameo too. Just a shame the sci-fi stuff was incoherent. Chucking the diamond across space and time? WTF? So much stuff wasn't properly explained, like the Ood's rapid advancement - or is that just the universe helping things along so they can help the Doctor? Maybe the Ood are being lined up as a new powerful race.
I like that Dalston turned out to be Rassillon. I suppose they could have developed that, but it would have overcomplicated things for new viewers. A nice nod to Who history.
Nice that they didn't reveal who the woman was. Another theory is that it was Romana...
I suppose it's up to Moffat how he develops this stuff, but I'd be surprised if he and RTD didn't consult each other over the changeover.
Millenium Falcon nod was a bit obvious. The bar/cantina was nicely done though. The Doctor's "death" was strongly reminiscent of Spock's death in Wrath of Khan. It worked though - far better done than the rip off of Search For Spock in Doctor's Daughter.

Added: Friday, 1 January, 2010, 20:15 GMT 20:15 UK

Woeful, tired and overly sentimental last story. David Tennant was brilliant with Rose but it all went downhill after that. I'm afraid Matt Smith lacks the gravitas or experience to carry off such a big role. Sorry BBC, I won't be watching the next series.

dixie dean

lol he was only on screen about a minute

what's the point of pasting these comments?

to annoy moaning bastards

Ood were not supposed to be advancing like that, but were = how the Doctor knew that something was truly fucked up.

Fair enough, maybe I was just expecting them to run with that a bit more.
Anyway, the trailer for the new series is bloody fantastic. Matt Smith reminds me of Peter Davidson a little. He's slightly ungainly, clumsy compared to the manic, dashing Tennant. I like him punching out some guy or battering the Dalek with a stick.
Plus River Song! Sexy sword wielding vampires! Old school looking black Daleks! That creepy revolving plastic head! Best of all, the weeping angels! A reprise of Blink could be fantastic.

Also new Doc seems much cooler with guns

Link for trailer?

It's upthread but here you go:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/newyear/

UK only tho - if overseas watch here: http://blogtorwho.blogspot.com/

I'm actually in London, this kind of made staying here over the hols worth it tbh.

Ugh. Can we get youtube star wars guy to do one on this?

I dunno, the numerous Star Wars references might put him off.

Too many nits to pick. And the nits are too large. But why didn't Wilf change to the Master? And why did no-one comment on this?

I think I hated RTD most of all for making nice old Bernard Cribbins cry over David Tennant.

Come on, that was a fairly rollicking, enjoyable episode, all in all.

And also, because I am thick, will someone tell me who the woman in Wilf's visions was supposed to be? I assumed it was an older Rose since they had the old Bad Wolf theme in the soundtrack, but maybe not.

glass chamber...template deflecting...something something xpost

Too many nits to pick. And the nits are too large. But why didn't Wilf change to the Master? And why did no-one comment on this?

i think the logic is that those who have been in the tardis are changed by it so don't fit the template or something.

Well that was pretty much nonsense, Tennant game till the end though. Looking forward to a change.

i think the logic is that those who have been in the tardis are changed by it so don't fit the template or something.

more to it than that as the Doctor kept meeting Wilf who was the harbinger of his doom - so "Time" or whatever was ensuring Wilf was protected so as to trigger the Doctor's demise at the right time...same ropey Rusty-logic as with Donna basically.

It was a pretty good part two, Rusty tied up loose ends with the other characters and leaves a pretty clean slate for the new team. There were many picayune nits to pick, as mentioned above. The DW and Torchwood episodes that Moffat has done in the past never impressed me much, but I will of course be watching the new ones. Tennant was a fine doctor and none of the clunky lines or cringeworthy moments really ruined it for me. (Hey, I've sat through probably 100 hours of Shatner on screen, I'm used to camp and cheese in my sci-fi.)

Moffat hasn't written any episodes of Torchwood.

what? I though he did that one with the rural serial killing family. Hmm...... I will research...

Aha, that was somebody name Chris Chibnall. I remember watching that and making a mental note of how crummy it was. Thnx

Trailer on YouTube. This already looks better than the past two seasons of RTD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lldtm-HA0yw

Quite Peter Davison there.

ok nitpick#1, why would the Doctor seemingly pick a random time to visit Rose (he had to ask her what year it was)?

Parallel Rose's Time Baby would have been better.

Hopefully that bar at the end with all of RTD's ideas in it is now timelocked.

i like the bowtie

lol at claiming psychic powers as a way to get a dude in the sack

But why didn't Wilf change to the Master?

He was sealed in the ultra-secure glass room when the template thing went off so it didn't affect him. I think they made a handwavey remark to this effect in Part One.

Considering how bad the first part was, it was better than I thought it was going to be.

I thought that too but otoh they would have had to worked HARD to make it WORSE than the first one.

First one wasn't actively bad, just incredibly lazy w/o any storytelling. Portions of the second part are actively bad, e.g. the climax where the Doctor HAD TO CHOOSE, BETWEEN the Master and the Pres., AND HE CHOSE... to shoot a machine, oops.

I hope that 'Geronimo!!!' isn't going to be new Doctor's 'thing'. I've only heard it twice and I'm tired of it.

Loved the ender...though I'm not a huge fan of RTD's endings. Its like Return of the King all over again: aaaaand END (cry!)...but then we'll go here and do some endy stuff that'll make you sniffle...aaaand then we'll go here and do some endy stuff...and look, it's all our friends we're seeing all our friends again...by which time you've run out of juice and the ending doesn't quite stick as well as it would've had we not gone through FIVE endings. minor quibble. Lovely to see Rose again and not in Paralleluniverseville.

Part two was about a zillion times better than part one. I liked the long, drawn-out regeneration stuff at the end.

I liked it, cringy moments and all, or maybe I was just glad there was no more mention of Barack Obammer. but bloody hell, that was some Bollywood death sequence.

Doctor: yes I'm going to die in the next ten minutes. But wait, i gotta do this one thing first. Okay i'm still dying, just one more thing. No wait...
Me: "BRING ON THE CHILD DOCTOR ALREADY!!!!"

also lol'd @ human-timelord metacrisis = instant Master-protection.

so when does the new series start?

btw i expected the new doctor to make a joke about not being able to find eyebrows.

i've had a good feeling about him since i found out about his casting, hope next season lives up to it.

he looks like fun yeah. Like the goofy ties.

Just watched both parts. I enjoyed it, but am torn with the "wow that was epic" sense with the "really? the only way you can write world-altering stories of momentous import is to literally have the entire fucking planet about to blow up/change/etc again?"

Uncollected thoughts:

I liked the contrast of arrogant, vacationing Doctor getting reprimanded by the Ood for fucking around too long. I kinda wish they had kept up the too-hubristically-cocky aspect for the entire story.

I'll agree with what was said above: RTD can do some great character bits and has some great ideas but does have a habit of fucking them all up in the execution.

Bernard Cribbins was excellent. I'm glad that they gave him a full adventure as a proper companion.

Haha: "American" newsreader can't pronounce "Barack."

Dalton was great was the imperious Time Lord with robes and power staff. i liked the exterior shot of the burning house of timelord parliament with all the crashed & smoldering Dalek saucers.

Assembled timelords looking like the Old Republic senate didn't bother me. You have a shitload of members of an interstellar race who have a history of tending to have their heads up their asses. of course their meeting hall is going to look big and pompous.

Didn't expect Jessica Hynes, but that was a cute call-back, as was the "weeping angels."

Super-leapy-lookie-i'm-a-sith Master was enh. If you need a proper Moriarty as a foil, you don't need a superpowered Moriarty. WRITE BETTER, dammit.

Kinda wished Wiggy Mcgann would have put in an appearance.

Nice Davison ref wth the Doctor dying from over-exposure to radiation.

At least Donna got a happy ending.

Superpower Master was there as a big fat clue to the kiddies that SHIT IS FUCKED UP; the only reason he was able to do pyrotechnics was because he was dying. As they mentioned every ten minutes or so, just in case people were not paying attention.

Assembled timelords looking like the Old Republic senate didn't bother me. You have a shitload of members of an interstellar race who have a history of tending to have their heads up their asses. of course their meeting hall is going to look big and pompous.

This - also reminded of the tribunal in A Matter Of Life and Death in some way but I'm sure the pomposity-in-great-hall thing has been alive and well in SF since maybe Metropolis. Not all SF roads lead to Star Wars so this is the part where I sigh and mumble something about Joseph Campbell hero quest 101. Now, was it just me or did they put a fake Princess Leia in the bar to piss off the Star Wars haters?

the 'weeping angels' thing made me sort of... angry? rtd's desperate need to EXPLAIN AWAY EVERYTHING is super-irritating to me, there's something territorial-pissing about it, I'm sure it used to feel like just playful nods to continuity and canon but by now it's like everything has to be tweaked to fit into the rtd-verse.

ok nitpick#1, why would the Doctor seemingly pick a random time to visit Rose (he had to ask her what year it was)?

― mdskltr (blueski), Friday, 1 January 2010 20:31 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I thought this was obvious, 1st of the year she met ecclescake.

Pleased that the Master disappeared and want explained, I hope he is back although using John Simm might be hard. Also the timelords may find other ways back as well.

xpost to self:

and this obsessive need for there to be no gaps - that stupid queen elizabeth crack e.g. - is just so limiting, and so selfish: it's saying 'if he has an adventure i will be the one to tell you about it', you start to feel as though the doctor is not having adventures when the camera isn't rolling. I've always assumed that the show is supposed to have the feel of 'here are some adventures from the life of that marvellously odd figure the doctor', the way that sherlock holmes stories are only brief episodes from a life, give you the sense that he is problem-solving all the time and we've cherry-picked a few interesting standouts from his casebook. And there are moments in e.g. season three where idk the Doctor and Martha are inexplicably wearing leis at the beginning of the episode and it's barely talked about because their life is like this all the time. But somehow, and maybe it was just in the Donna season - maybe it was just because of things like how interesting Donna's development as a person was - it started to feel less vignette-y and more... biographical. Too totalising. Which is especially irritating because of the 'everything happens on Earth all the time' aspect - if it felt like Stories from the Casebook of the Doctor, you could feel subconsciously a sort of 'ah well, we get stories about Earth because as Earth people that's what we're going to care about', and it wouldn't be so annoying.

I dunno, I guess for me there is something anti-imagination in here, as with the overdetermined emotions of the soundtrack.

good point. but at least with the weeping angels thing it was just a hint to the next series i think - not essential but i liked it.

eyeroll at people acting like "Geronimo" is so much worse than "Fantastic" or "Allons-y"

you're right it's all shit

Bit of a retro 60s pop-art vibe to the new trailer. I approve.