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

Hmm, also, that episode was the first where they've directly contradicted the Paul-McGann-is-half-human thing, wasn't it? The doc who went off with Rose wouldn't have been a big deal if alpha-doc was half human all along. Makes sense that they dropped it, but I wonder how it'll be explained as far as the canon is concerned. Perhaps it'll just be written off as a genetic quirk of that particular regeneration.

Lots of hokum re. 'DETONATE THE REALITY BOMB', 'ALL MATTER IN CREATION IS ABOUT TO BE DESTROYED' etc, which I suppose is spoken or written tongue in cheek

A lot of very convenient methods and mechanisms in which one can press a button and destroy every Dalek in the universe - hm

The way Tennant and Tate played each others' personae after merging, or whatever, was quite good, reminiscent of LINDSAY LOHAN in FREAKY FRIDAY

I don't know all those characters that well, but recognized them and could see a magnitude in their all converging, from different programmes / series of their own, I take it, as well as from Dr Who ... I never saw K-9's return before, so was happy to glimpse him here (is he in another programme these days?)

The way they left one Tennant for Piper to hang out with and the first Tennant left - this worked for me, somehow. But won't that hybrid Tennant perish in the same way that the altered Tate did?

I like Bernard Cribbins and am amazed he is still able to act on TV or anything. It was nice, for people like me, to see him get the final scene. And even the final shot of angsty wet Tennant flying off was good.

I am very sceptical about this programme in general, but I did like this.

But won't that hybrid Tennant perish in the same way that the altered Tate did?

I guess timelord conciousness is too BIG for human brane but not vice versa, or something.

And even the final shot of angsty wet Tennant flying off was good

As he was moping around then, I suddenly expected a Time Crash style moment where Sylvester McCoy finally did appear - and then Ecclestone, and McGann, and Baker (C), and then we'd crash-cut away from that to "COMING CHRISTMAS 2008 - THE OTHER FIVE DOCTORS". Shame that didn't happen. :)

Yeah that was another fine dollop of enjoyable hokum, no actual messiah nonsense to get me all riled up. Although I do get a bit tired of the "aren't we humans bleedin' amazin'" theme which seems to run through almost all TV skiffy.

Shtoopid fun, reasonably great, should've killed Donna properly, will miss Dalek James Caan, suppose the stupid gits will still be back in 2010 or something.

it was fun. nice ending. Did wish Cribbins joined as a companion. Love that guy.

> Doc+Rose recognising Gwen Cooper

remind me what this was about.

> K9 (is he in another programme these days?)

he lives in sarah jane smith's cupboard (which is, of course, a portal to somewhere) on CBBC. but he's barely in it save for 30 seconds a season - they don't have the rights to the character.

remind me what this was about.

The Gwen actress was also in the 2006 series of Who, playing the servant who recognised Rose's "Big Bad Wolf" in that Victorian episode with the werewolves. So this just implied Gwen was one of her descendants.

Oh wait, I'm wrong. She was in the Unquiet Dead, 2005. Not the wolfy one.

No you're right, she was the "big bad wolf/metal birds with wings" woman - she was the psychic woman working at the undertaker's in the 1800s Cardiff/Dickens/ghosts episode. Not the werewolf episode, no.

Horrible, horrible episode. Just horrible.

Maybe 10% brilliance, but really, just horrible.

There was literally no point to Davros. He's meant to represent a purpose, a humanity, behind the Daleks. In this one he's all 'wah I want to destroy everything' without a proper reason. The Daleks could have done that all by themselves.

Donna's turn as the Doctor-Donna was delicious. I really, really wanted to see more of that.

Emo Clone Doctor loving Rose in an alternate dimension?!?? Fuck off. Seriously actually please completely go away and fuck off. That was well left alone.

And Bad Wolf STILL not explained properly.

Argh just horrible.

10% sense, but not bothered. it was great!

"In this one he's all 'wah I want to destroy everything' without a proper reason"

you are referred to the bit in genesis where the doXoR proposes a bug that would wipe out all other life forms in the universe leaving just itself, and he goes YEAH that would be ACE.

donna-doctor, like doner kebab but with more zest

-- Autumn Almanac, Tuesday, 1 July 2008 15:42 (5 days ago) Bookmark Link

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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

-- Autumn Almanac, Monday, 30 June 2008 09:00 (6 days ago) Bookmark Link

1. happened
2. happened
3. happened
4. bzzzt
5. bzzzt
6. BZZZT BZZZT BZZZT BZZZT BZZZT

WAIT NO, ONE CORRECTION

- Rose's big gun-toting megareturn pays off in some way far greater than 'omg Doctor at last i has fuond you'

BZZZT BZZZT BZZZT BZZZT BZZZT BZZZT BZZZT. OMG I MEAN THEY ACTUALLY SNOGGED AND EVERYTHING.

ok, studiously avoiding reading this thread. Just got back from the corner shop, now armed with chicken wings, jo-jo's, and about 4 pints of beer. Ep is both downloaded and loaded up.

And here....we...go!

Watched both the last eps in a row today - very excited to see Tennant seemingly go, but then disappointed that he was in fact doubled for extra Rose emo potential.

(I was hoping that Nu-Doctor would be evil and become the new Master while the Doctor regenerated at the end but I guess it wasn't to be. It did look like it would go that way for a minute.)

nu-doctor did a genocide! quite evil. by usual standards of doxor

(baker t couldn't do it. sylvester mccoy did)

Oh yeah, the sudden un-regeneration was unsatisfying because it was unwound SO quickly. At least give us some edge-of-the-seat suspense before undoing the cliffhanger ffs.

why are you people unhappy about the 2nd version of Tennant going off with Piper in the other dimension?

I quite liked that, I think.

'Genocide' seems a red herring, or an inapt word, as the Daleks at that point were all about to go and destroy things / the universe / etc. But I still don't know how he managed suddenly to kill them all (but I get the impression that all the rules in this programme are made up as it goes along).

There was literally no point to Davros. He's meant to represent a purpose, a humanity, behind the Daleks. In this one he's all 'wah I want to destroy everything' without a proper reason.

Ha, Alan's already said what I was going to say to this, but yeah, this is dead wrong, one of the things I really liked about this episode is how true it was to the original spirit of davros!

The Doctor : "Davros, if you had created a virus in your laboratory. Something contagious and infectious that killed on contact. A virus that would destroy all other forms of life... would you allow its use?"

Davros : "It is an interesting conjecture."

The Doctor : "Would you do it?"

Davros : "The only living thing...the microscopic organism... reigning supreme... A fascinating idea."

The Doctor : "But would you do it?"

Davros : "Yes. Yes. To hold in my hand, a capsule that contained such power. To know that life and death on such a scale was my choice. To know that the tiny pressure on my thumb, enough to break the glass, would end everything. Yes. I would do it. That power would set me up above the gods. And through the Daleks I shall have that power!"

Plus, you know, highlighting the stuff about the doctor making people into weapons, and running away from the fact so many of them die for him - there was plenty of "point to davros" there, for my money.

- A Face of Boe reference is dropped in somewhere

5. bzzzt

He was in there! One of the "look who's died for you doctor" flashes.

At least give us some edge-of-the-seat suspense before undoing the cliffhanger ffs.

WE HAD A WHOLE WEEK OF THAT! ffs.

Wonder how Rose is going to react when she realises that her new wuv-doctor happens to have all Catherine Tate's mannerisms.

Yeah, lotsa OI! yelling at inappropriate moments.

Fuck me, RTD really blew everything out for this one, didn't he?

At any rate, I think I enjoyed this. Watching last week's, one of the things i wondered about, and found after a bit of searching, was that the insignia pin that Cribbins wore on his red stocking cap was/were SAS wings. Last week's ep really was something where too much was happening too fast to really consider if it made sense or not in real time.

Still, I always enjoy Doctor/Davros interactions, because each Doctor gets to fuck with him in their own special way.

Kinda disappointing that there wasn't more Doctors involved, but I'm hoping one of next year's specials will have a multi-doctor story. I guess the "Tennant will be back next year" newsbits weren't a headfake after all.

Also, having only seen half of the first season of Torchwood, when did Fishface get quite so, um, "fishy"?

The best bit was getting home at 10 o'clock this evening, with the episode all recorded and ready to watch, but just beforehand sitting down to check emails and seeing the breaking news 'latest' ticker on the BBC News homepage pop up with "David Tennant remains Doctor Who after series ends without him regenerating".

Fuckwits.

Davros: 'You are the destroyer of worlds!!'

THE DOCTOR = BOB

why are you people unhappy about the 2nd version of Tennant going off with Piper in the other dimension?

Mills & Boon?

Okay I've watched the end again (the Donna stuff only, mind) and I agree that it was brilliant.

AND OMG CYBERMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!

there was so much great stuff in this episode (daleks speaking german, the doctor and donna taking on each other's personalities, the genesis callback, davros telling the doctor he turns people into weapons... burn! take the shame doctor!, the return of mickey, the rose resolution) but the impact of all of it was dulled by me waiting throughout the whole episode, right up until the end when he goes back into the TARDIS, for the regeneration to complete. you start the doctor regenerating, he'd better fucking regenerate! RTD you suck so much for doing that.

i really hope mickey ends up on torchwood though... i missed him! he and captain jack play off each other really well.

For all it's dumbassedness and canon debasing, this was idiotic good times.

Really really really wish he'd taken cribbins with him at the end though.

Seriously, I was literally sitting on the couch with my fingers crossed saying aloud to no one "please please PLEASE take him" cause that woulda been AWESOME

"Hey what's this do?"
"Don't touch that!"
"uh oh..."

And yeah, what kind of anticlimactic ending was that? Beats being smashed into by space titanic i guess, but....

I loved Captain Jack's inappropriate lewdness on the docteur e troix... "I can't tell you what I'm thinking right now"

It fell flat for me. Not least because a week of cliffhanger excitement dissipated in the first 30 seconds, making the rest seem anticlimactic, regardless of impending destruction of universe.

I like a bit of hokum, but even hokum has to have some kind of logic. This had lots of random stuff showing up (exploding jewellery?) and point after point in the resolution was just fudged over at high speed.

The two doctors thing allowed quite a bit of cake-and-eating-it too - so the doctor gets to kill all the daleks while still maintaining the moral position that killing is bad, and he gets to be with Rose, but not really. And the whole thing had the sickly sweet whiff of fan fiction.

Come to think of it, for the first time I really did want to hide behind the sofa. Sadly not out of fear but more out of a mounting sense of cringe.

Yeah, everything was crammed in there too fast, and the logic wasn't particularly sound, but as a send off for the Davies years and in terms of sheer nerdgasm entertainment value, it brought me major smiles.

The Donna thing was handled really well at the end there. Donna's whole arc of "i'm a middle-aged loser doing temp work and living with my mum" played out beautifully, what with being able to save the world(s), only to have it snatched away.

I saw a bit of an RTD interview with the BBC about the spoilers and the cliffhanger, and he said he was "surprised" by all the fuss, which made me think it wasn't going to be the HUGE deal it might have seemed. I had to chuckle at that.

The two doctors thing was pretty iffy, but all in all there wasn't much of a cop-out ending, especially with the aforementioned consequences that resulted from the solution.

On reflection, I really wonder if this would be otherwise rejected as overzealous fanservice if it wasn't for RTD playing every single ace he had and cashing it in all at once. Cribbins had some great lines: "she won't let me have one! Thinks they're naughty!"

Appropos of nothing, a goon posted this somewhere else:

Remember 'Dalek'?

That was a rather neat episode in series one. It was set in 2012. There was this strange metal monster that nobody had ever heard of or seen before, despite the fact that they noisily moved our planet halfway across the galaxy and then invaded and conquered the shit out of the planet four years ago, and then fucked off again.

Also, was this the first appearance of respek knuckles in DW?

That was a rather neat episode in series one. It was set in 2012. There was this strange metal monster that nobody had ever heard of or seen before, despite the fact that they noisily moved our planet halfway across the galaxy and then invaded and conquered the shit out of the planet four years ago, and then fucked off again.

TIME TRAVEL

Then again, I think I highly tolerant of a lot of stuff in this last story from just the angle of "fine, FINE, if this is what you need to do in order to leave the show, whatevs. Have your emo beach scene, tie up your loose ends, send Mickey off to Torchwood to get skeeved out by Jack."

Wish there had been more Davros, tho. He needs a proper ep or two.

And bring back Peter Miles, if nothing else than for one of the best representations of a fascist cog on film.

Donna still had that time beetle on her back in last week's episode. They made a point of it. So wtf happened there? An excuse to bring her back in later years?

Also, expect a big announcement in the next 48 hours. They always cap off a season with some kind of announcement, just to keep the hype going.

I reckon it'll be the next companion.

I don't think she had the spider on her back, I think the Shadow Proclamation woman said she'd had a spider on her back.