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

When the tardis is in the zed neutrino core or whatever the fuck, the same set of window implode, like thirteen times.

One thing a second viewing showed me was that for all the "movement", they left every character still on the table. Even Davros is likely due back next season!

> digital subtitles (thanks red bee) had german lady say "Albtraum" for daleks

surely Dalek is german for Dalek.

(albtraum would appear to translate as something like 'nightmare' from that wiki page)

(i also watched those two episodes of The Tomorrow People with young rodney trotter as a nazi yesterday, was something of a national socialist weekend.)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/07/television.bbc

"It's a drama, he's a character with a full emotional range. It is a very science fiction thing to separate the plot off and dissect a story and talk about, I don't know, the 57 emotional lines spoken by the Doctor."

So Torchwood S3 is going to be Jack, Martha, Mickey and the other two then?

I hope mickey has been learning some l33t other universe computer skills otherwise otherwise rathe than replacing tosh he gets to take Ianto's old job of tea boy, receptionist and gimp.

That is the point of Mickey, everyone treats him as gimp for 40mins and then he pulls off something brilliant. I liked it when Ecclestone insisted on getting his name wrong for most of the series.

You saw the hug Jack gave him - he was probably sizing him up for a rubber hood.

I was a bit disappointed, overall, by that finale. Davros's big speech to the Doctor was good, but "he was forged in anger" was a far-too-easy route out of it. For that matter, the hybrid Doctor was used in a very odd way - created, flies the Tardis away from destruction, then ... well, he has to pop up every few minutes to be seen watching the action and say "ooh!", so we don't forget he's there. But that's all. And none of the Daleks notice!

There was another thing I didn't understand about that, too. As Davros said, the Doctor would have been able to feel if the Tardis had died. So equally the Doctor should have known that it had escaped. Why was he so surprised, then, when it reappeared? Did he realise that it had escaped, or not?

the Doctor looked a bit like he was faking it when he told Davros he felt sadness about the Tardis being destroyed, sort of implying he did realise it had escaped. and Rose gave him a funny look at that point too.

Yes, that's what I thought - but then he seemed genuinely surprised when it returned later.

The second Doctor running out of it might have been a bit unexpected as well.

OK, I said I wouldn't be back till after the finale. Strap yourselves in, this might be a long one.

Firstly, can I just say something about spoilers? I don't think I've said anything actually spoilery on this thread - maybe the closest I came was when I suggested people might want to look out for Julian Bleach's appearance on Torchwood - because as far as I'm concerned once an actor (in this case John Barrowman) has appeared on a TV chat show and said "I'm in the last two episodes of the series" I can't see how that doesn't mean the news is out there for everyone. If there's as tight a control on information as is strongly implied then him saying that on the show was okayed by the production team for release. Ditto David Morrissey in an obviously posed photograph from APRIL upthread in the Daily Mail link - which is totally different from Sun 'exclusives' with 'leaked' photos - but see also how I'm not talking about which Big Finish audio his character is allegedly based on in case it gives anything away. Or which returning characters from 'Classic' Who are in S2 of the Sarah Jane Adventures until it's announced (I think it could well be the Series wind-down NEWS story). That's the stance I'd like to keep up tbh, giving little dribbles of hints without saying anything but talking freely about things that are approved by the production office to talk freely about.

Anyway, Rusty's finale. Good bit: Daleks talking German. Bad bits: pretty much everything else. Halfway through the episode I realised the 'extra' 20 minutes was going to be just to film all the goodbyes and I WAS NOT WRONG. "I decided not to regenerate after all, just to fix my body." Rusty, if you immediately resolve a cliffhanger with a handwave and inventing some new Deus Ex Machina shit to allow your handwave IT IS NOT GENIARSE, IT IS UTTER WANK AND CHEATS YOUR AUDIENCE. (Interestingly, see the spin-off show The Sarah Jane Adventures for a great example in the same continuity universe of how to actually do cliffhangers - the one between parts 1 and 2 of The Lost Boy is a genuine shocker.) Pulling out one newly invented Big Red Button after the other is not clever, it is bad writing (although interestingly SJS says it was given to her by a "seer", presumably the same one who gave her the puzzle box in SJA and so an agent of The Trickster BUT MORE ON THAT LATER, also note Rusty And His Wacky Anagrams Osterhagen = Earth's Gone HAHAHAHAHA YOU ARE SO CLEVARR) even if you render them all useless with a third Big Red Button. Which you then undo with a fourth Big Red Button - was it just me, or did anybody else expect Yakkety Sax to break out when Donna was controlling the Daleks? - which you can only undo with a Big Shiny Reset Button OH JUST FUCK OFF. So, the daleks "utterly destroyed throughout all time and all space" then. Just like they have been in every Rusty series so far. (For those counting, all the Daleks were destroyed in all time and space forever in the Time War, apart from the one that survived into Dalek before it blew itself up, oh and apart from the one that survived to become the Emperor Dalek in BW/PotW, where they all got totally destroyed throughout all time and space forever, except for the other ones it turned out escaped the Time War who then brought back all their mates that had been hiding until they were all destroyed throughout all time and space forever apart from the ones that escaped to New York where they were all destroyed throughout all time and space forever except for the one that got into the Time War and managed to get Davros out, going mad in the process, and managed to create more daleks which were all utterly destroyed throughout all time and space forever - see, if you read all that you'll see one of Rusty's problems. EVERYTHING HAS TO BE HUGE. In the 'Classic' series it was fine to defeat just one Dalek faction allowing them to return. You prevent them stealing the Earth (as in DIoE) rather than let them take it then bring it back BECAUSE IT ALLOWS FOR BETTER STORYTELLING. Somebody has said above "hang on, why is the single dalek such a surprise when they stole the Earth" and THAT'S EXACTLY RIGHT. I will expand in a bit. OH FUCK YOU ALL SAY, I THOUGHT HE WAS FINISHED.)

The biggest horror was the ROSE DOC WUB WUB WUB EMO scene. The Pinefox asks what's wrong with it, and I'll tell you. IT'S PANDERING TO THE VERY WORST ELEMENTS OF FANDOM, THE SHIPPERS, AND IN THE PROCESS CHEATING ALL YOUR VIEWERS BY HANDWAVING AWAY THE FINALE OF ONE OF YOUR PREVIOUS SERIES. WHICH WAS ONLY TWO FUCKING YEARS AGO. (Oh, the irony, Rusty complaining today about people who don't think like he does being the scum of fandom.) Yes, we get it, you like soap operas. THAT DOESN'T MEAN YOU HAVE TO TURN A SHOW THAT ISN'T ONE INTO ONE. It also isn't even consistent with the story overall he's trying to tell. Doctor 10.5 really isn't very happy being human and he says as much, he even seems quite repelled by the thought of the anatomy. Yet by the same token we're supposed to believe this very same alium is prepared to think "I WUB YOU" about another species. Imagine their surprise when they both get undressed for TEH SEXXXING (which was more than strongly implied) and it turns out he's smooth like an Action Man because Gallifreyan sexxxing is done by pouring acid in each others eyes, or something. It's not even the only inconsistency in his OWN CONTINUITY, "remember when we met, I was so angry and you changed that" NO NO NO do you seriously think we've forgotten how angry the Doctor was in PotW? REGENERATION made him not angry, not Rose. AT LEAST WE HAVE BEEN SAVED FROM "ROSE TYLER, EARTH DEFENDER" although given that both Torchwood and SJA, after very shaky opening episodes, turned out to be better than NuWho maybe we missed out after all.

I might even have enjoyed the Donna stuff were it not all a Cartmel Nasterplan pt2 rip-off. For those who are not aware in Series 27 if it got made, and specifically in a serial called Ice Time written by Marc Platt, Ace was going to become a Time Lord in order to try and 'humanise' Gallifrey and lead to the creation of a new race of Time Lords; and it was going to be revealed that The Doctor had deliberately picked Ace and subjected her to the events of Series 25 and 26 just to shape her the right way. SIMILAR, MUCH? Also lol@ Bill & Ted "We totally went back in time after we'd won and put the things in place so we'd win, dude" handwaving. TEMP DONNA = TIME LADY with a bit of bad babelfishing OMG RUSTY HAHAHAHAHA YOU ARE CLEVARR PART 2.

To get back to "how can people not remember", this is just the Rusty Era UNIT DATING CONTROVERSY. Ever since the first series of NuWho, timelines and continuity have been totally fucked. I could explain, but I'd just bore you, suffice to say Rusty's obsession with everything being in the present day and having characters reference things they have seen or taken part in ("my cousin died at Canary Wharf", "I knew you'd come back" etc) puts it all in a sequential timeline which at the very minimum put the "present" in NuWho in late 2010, or at worst sets up conflicting dates with things which happened after other things being rembered by characters during events which happened before. HE HASN'T EVEN GOT DECADES OF CONTUNUITY TO BLAME, HE'S DONE THIS COMPLETELY TO HIMSELF. And THAT is why he's a bad writer, more than anything else.

A couple of last things before I go. I can't remember whether I commented on Turn Left, but I enjoyed it. This may have been because it was just Whatever Happened To Sarah Jane with a bigger budget (and, amazingly, it was the "budget lite" episode so that shows how little is spent on SJA).

I never thought I'd be defending Freema, because she is totally wooden, but the look to camera gif upthread isn't, the shot beforehand shows she's supposed to be looking at The Doctor. But DO NOT WANT IN TORCHWOOD.

One last Rusty OMG YOU ARE SO CLEVARRR WITH YOUR FUNNY ANAGRAMS AND HINTS. Bernard Cribbins' character is called Wilfred Mott. WTF TIME LORD. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I thought this was mostly awful (possibly even worse than last year's finale) too for reasons probably already documented. How disappointing.

Dude that anagram thing is the sort of thing we'd be going "OMG love it!" about if it turned up in Lost.

It was great!

I agree Matt, but maybe that's because the Lost writers would use it sparingly. You can make a telling anagram out of almost every name Rusty uses (except where he's stolen them out of other things he's written) and the Donna thing would have been quite clever had every other line of dialogue she uttered in the second half of the series not been "I'm a temp". When you batter your audience over the head with your subtlety you're erm... not being subtle any more.

Wait they were trying to be subtle?!

Unbelievably, yes.

I could explain, but I'd just bore you

Come, now...

I've got a theory that Rusty put the Time War in there in the first place because its an excuse to effectively throw timelines and continuity in the bin in the first place rather than tie themselves up in knots with them WHICH ALWAYS HAPPENS otherwise. Which is fine until you try and write something like Turn Left (which fudged that particular issue by bringing Donna's own parallel universe into it).

Surely the Daleks attacked Earth at least once between the 60s and 80s which might have made the news, or at least have been remembered by whichever shady organisation had the 'last' Dalek back in S1?

They've also fudged that issue wrt 'fixed points' in time (ie Pompeii, anything historical that really happened) and 'time is in flux' (Dalek presumably, everything that's made up).

The yakkety saxiness of Donna's scene where she foils the Daleks was the whole point! It was hilarious! C'mon Daleks in general are the most hilariously rubbish aliens ever. If you've lost sight of this I... feel for you.

Dalek battle in London, 1964 (Rememberance) but the Army and the British Rocket Group are involved from the start and there's no evidence that there isn't a good clean up afterwards.
Minor appearances of small clusters in The Chase, Evil Of The Daleks, Ressurection but these are time travellers.
Death To the Daleks happens in the "late 20th Century" but acknowledges itself that the events of it change time and it happens in a remote location.
Everything else is in the future (DIoE primarily) or on another planet.

So no, Rusty is the first one to have a decent dalek force on Earth.

xpost to Matt

Tracer, I personally don't particularly like the Daleks, but if that's the case then the Rusty episodes featuring Daleks are pretty pointless - you're undoing any menace associated with the finales of S2 and S3 for starters.

why I hated it: Poor, unimaginative, badly written story that felt entirely secondary to RTD's massive deluded wank - too many conveninent solutions and coincidences unexplained, staggeringly stupid things like "the Doctor-Donna! like what the Ood said!", very annoying sub-Doc/Donna exchanges, Donna's Timelord hammery, pointless inclusion of Jackie and Mickey, Martha, Earth tow (but...how would the sea stay in place? oh sorry it's FUNNN must not question...) sequence, the sheer stupidity of the Daleks "plan", Caan's insistence that "one will die" meaning only that Timelord Donna memory gets wiped (can't believe RTD pulled this 'companion's gonna die...ah but not really' thing again - not that I thought she should've been killed off) conveniently quickly and easily, useless useless Supreme Dalek, rather pointless "look it's Geeta from Eastenders...zap" attempt at emotional tug, "children of Time" rubbish, unsatisfying destruction of entire Dalek empire, Bad Wolf Bay scenes and clumsiness of Rose/Doctor solution (why is her getting her man so important? why must she win while everyone else loses?), just the general execution of things (altho he's never had to handle classic Who monsters, i would've taken a drunk Moffat-written version of this over RTD wank any day...

A couple of great scenes (Germany stuff - dubious as the 'LOL NUREMBERG' stuff felt, Davros in general, Daleks being spun around) just can't make up for all that.

There weren't any Daleks in the S3 finale.

You don't think that the massively powerful organisation that had the Dalek and owned the internet or whatever it was might have known about any cover-up?

I just don't think there's any point getting that het up about continuity seeing as it's always going to fall down at some point. Which is fine until you write something perfectly self-contained like Blink that relies upon proper cause-and-effect loops in the first place.

Potential continuity problems since nu-Who started:

Martha's qualification as a Doctor, promotion within Unit etc.
2012 olympics being IN THE FUTURE (or are they).
Harriet Jones period of office as Prime Minister.
Huw Edwards still presenting the news.
Richard Dawkins not being destroyed by a heavenly thunderbolt.
Etc etc.

My general feeling was whilst the "science" and multimply ex machina solutions were usual Rusty finale bobbins, the end of the whole Donna arc was emotionally very pleasing (well except the end, but even that worked because it ran counter to everyone elses happy endings). Donna has been the most satisfying companion with a proper emotional growth and there is a nice hidden question in her final status quo. Just because she doesn't remember any of her adventures, does it mean she is not changed? Will her mother be more supportive, will Donna become a better person. I doubt we'll find out (particularly as the Moffat storyline did its best to sideline her) but is a good one for the kids to think about - and much much worse than losing Rose to a parallel world. Twice.

or at least have been remembered by whichever shady organisation had the 'last' Dalek back in S1?

Firstly, that hasn't actually happened yet because it was in 2012 (if RTD's "continuity" places us currently in 2010 as aldo suggests), secondly it was in a museum of stuff being catalogued by Adam-with-all-the-info-in-the-world-in-his-head who has disappeared and been written out of Who history (I sound quite bitter about this, don't I? I just don't get the continual reference of things that don't matter like Gwen looking like Gwyneth, Martha being Adeola's identical cousin etc yet here is a guy with Hugely Important Stuff that has just been consigned to the scrapheap)

I guess it'll be OK for Donna to read and hear references to presumably world famous incidents like 'the Christmas star/when the Thames got drained' and all the other stuff touched on in Turn Left and not have the memories re-awakened. Ergh.

I meant that the 2010 (or whenever) organisation would probably, in all their research, possibly have unearthed some evidence of an invasion in 1964 even if it was covered up.

I'd love to see Adam return but obv it won't happen. We can just figure that when his Mum clicked her fingers she freaked out and shopped him to the military where he remains an employed prisoner, probably helped UNIT build the Valiant etc.

Sorry, I meant S1 and S2 for dalek finales. Not to mention the one that's just finished. So for three series out of four we're MEANT to believe that there's actually no threat to any life forms, because daleks are bit crap innit? CHINNY RECKON.

Thank you for reminding me about RICHARD FUCKING DAWKINS. That's right, a TV show would hire a biologist as an astronomy expert. Because he's a "scientist". Presumably next we'll have Steve Davis commentation on football next. Because they're both "sportsmen". WORSE THAN STUNT CASTING.

xpost You'd think they'd remember the Earth getting moved to the other end of the universe, the world being over-run by Daleks in the street blowing shit up, then towed home by a police box as well two years earlier, rather than all that "what is this strange metal pepperpot"

oh good point, wasn't thinking about that

That's right, a TV show would hire a biologist as an astronomy expert. Because he's a "scientist".

The sad thing is, they probably would.

Should've got Guy Goma, tbh (was that his name? taxi driver / accidental computer expert)

^ note to Rusty, this is my idea and it is terrible, please do not steal for any of your upcoming specials, OK?

i believe RTD consulted Gok Wan for the scene where the sub-Doctor appears in the buff

I don't think RTD even thinks about some of the stuff he writes. Turn Left showed us what a parlous state the world/universe would be in without the Doctor, and he knows it, yet as soon as Donna looks like dying in the oxide-and-neutrino whirligig or whatever it was, he basically says "Kill me instead!" as if that would be a sensible sacrifice. But there's no time to question that bit of idiocy because there's something even stupider around the corner. The Earth towing! So the Earth's been traumatised by Dalek occupation, then subjected to the equivalent of a moderate planet-wide earthquake with all the damage that would inflict, but basically everything's OK now.

The most annoying thing about RTD is that he dismisses all his critics as nerds who can't handle the emotional stuff when the truth is that Moffat's stories are far more moving than this soap opera bullshit. And if you're going to constantly break the implied contract that all sci-fi/fantasy makes with the viewer - accept this one implausible central premise and everything else will make sense - you can't turn around and call anyone who is bothered by this a geek. I don't even like sci-fi as a rule - I'd just like to be able to suspend my disbelief for longer than a few minutes without some ridiculous contradiction or deus ex machina making me feel like I'm wasting my time on a show written by someone who can't be arsed to resolve basic plot difficulties and just chucks everything into the blender. Good riddance to the guy.

Presumably the events of Dalek don't actually happen any more, because the whole thing has been rewritten by an older Doctor (rather that what happened to a younger one even further in the real past). Considering that Dalek committed suicide its impact on anything is pretty minimal.

(Xpost - OTM about Moffatt and the emotional stuff. Paul Cornell is possibly even better at doing it, I want him back in 2010 please).

The problem with this cliffhanger - like most Who cliffhangers - is that it hinges on OMG they are in immediate peril of death when you know full well it's not going to happen. The best cliffhangers are when the viewer is left on the verge of some big reveal, which this two-parter hinted at and then copped out of.

aldo aldo aldo

see, if you read all that you'll see one of Rusty's problems. EVERYTHING HAS TO BE HUGE.

This nails it.

Every year they raise the stakes, again again and again. It got silly, and now that we've just had END OF TEH UNIVERSE there really is nowhere to go, apart from killing the Doctor or summat.

It's not even the only inconsistency in his OWN CONTINUITY, "remember when we met, I was so angry and you changed that" NO NO NO do you seriously think we've forgotten how angry the Doctor was in PotW? REGENERATION made him not angry, not Rose.

I thought he was referring to Ecclesdoc coming into being during the Time War. Possible?

I might even have enjoyed the Donna stuff were it not all a Cartmel Nasterplan pt2 rip-off. For those who are not aware in Series 27 if it got made, and specifically in a serial called Ice Time written by Marc Platt, Ace was going to become a Time Lord in order to try and 'humanise' Gallifrey and lead to the creation of a new race of Time Lords; and it was going to be revealed that The Doctor had deliberately picked Ace and subjected her to the events of Series 25 and 26 just to shape her the right way. SIMILAR, MUCH?

It was never used, so why not now? And yes, I know Ace got all ballsy in the books a la Rose this year, but Father's Day was recycled last year to good effect so meh, basically.

which at the very minimum put the "present" in NuWho in late 2010, or at worst sets up conflicting dates with things which happened after other things being rembered by characters during events which happened before. HE HASN'T EVEN GOT DECADES OF CONTUNUITY TO BLAME, HE'S DONE THIS COMPLETELY TO HIMSELF. And THAT is why he's a bad writer, more than anything else.

Very, very few people care about this.

I think the entire planet Earth will be retconned in one of next year's specials, making the events/circumstances of 'Dalek' work again.

altho that kind of already happened in last year's finale (but we know RTD likes to recycle his shittest ideas).

OK, RTD "continuity"

Rose is in real time (April 2005)
by Aliens of London she has been missing a year (May 2006)
In Boom Town, Margaret Blaine has left London and become Lord Mayor of Cardiff and started construction on a nuclear power station (let's be generous and say she can achieve all this in a year June 2007)
Christmas Invasion therefore cannot occur before December 2007 (also a year seems reasonable for everryone to accept Harriet Jones is actually Prime Minister)
School Reunion takes place after this, as Mickey and Jackie are not surprised by Doctor 10 (April 2008)
Love & Monsters takes place during Rose's time with Doctor 10. (I will place a side note to Vote Saxon poster)
Army Of Ghosts takes place some time after this, as the ghosts have been appearing for "months". This episode takes place in the summer (Donna is on holiday in Spain, she later tells us) so must be in summer 2009.
The Runaway Bride explicitly takes place after this, because The Doctor asks Donna about Doomsday so Christmas 2009. (Again, optimistic, as HC Clements has undergone a total reconstruction of Canary Wharf but let's be generous)
Smith & Jones takes place after this ("my cousin died at Canary Wharf") so April 2010.
The Lazarus Experiment is later this year, and must be into winter because it is dark outside by 6pm and Saxon is not PM
Saxon becomes PM in the late spring (2011)
A year passes but is RESETTED therefore LotTL takes place therefore June 2011 makes it real time
Voyage Of the Damned must take place therefore in December 2011 (although technically I suppose there's nothing stopping it happening in 2010, except Martha having not noticed it happening despite it only having been a couple of weeks beforehand)
Martha qualifies as a Doctor after LotTL which must be a year afterwards since she's missed the year through travelling, made explicit at the end of that story, which means the Sontaran eps can't take place before AT LEAST summer 2012 (assuming she qualifies in the May-ish of that year and is promoted within UNIT and trusted to the point where she can get farmed out to Torchwood after only weeks of working there). Wilf remembers the Doctor from VotD so it must happen after that.
If Stolen Earth therefore happens at the 'right time' of year (ignoring the nights drawing in) it can't possibly happen before July 2012.

Two months after Dalek.

FUCK'S SAKE, THIS ISN'T HARD. RUSTY AND HIS CUNTY MATES GET PAID VAST SWATHES OF MONEY TO ENSURE SHIT LIKE THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN.

And if you're going to constantly break the implied contract that all sci-fi/fantasy makes with the viewer - accept this one implausible central premise and everything else will make sense - you can't turn around and call anyone who is bothered by this a geek. I don't even like sci-fi as a rule - I'd just like to be able to suspend my disbelief for longer than a few minutes without some ridiculous contradiction or deus ex machina making me feel like I'm wasting my time on a show written by someone who can't be arsed to resolve basic plot difficulties and just chucks everything into the blender.

Bang on. However, we do tend to forget that Davies brought back the show in its current, moderately incredible form. Yes he bollocksed up a few basic tenets of storytelling, especially in these stake-raising finales, but without him we probably wouldn't have a show as good as this.

I cannot wait for Moffat to hit his straps.

Matt DC: Excellent point. Right through this episode I wasn't sure if Donna was going to live, but I more-or-less knew she wouldn't be going on, so even that was a foregone conclusion to some extent. Other than that, we all knew the Doctor would live, Earth would be fine, the Daleks would be defeated etc etc.

xp also, of the 9.4 million Britons who watch, approx. 12 people sit down and work out the show's relative timeline.

also aldo

still really want to punch RTD for the "ONE WILL DIE...ONE WILL STILL DIE..." garbage

I agree that the solutions everyone found to the scrapes they got into (i.e. the pendant, i.e. Donna pushing a few buttons) were unbelievably uninteresting. The whole point to putting your heroes in scrapes is to see how they get out of them, but this finale just sort of forgot to show the cleverness of its heroes - it didn't let us get involved in their solutions.

On the other hand, the Daleks are just the sort of overconfident assholes who would have a control panel in the corner whose only function appear to be to blow them, up one by one.

them up, one

i liked Jackie using her teleport to escape the group who then got de-atomised but the way Sarah Jane managed to sneak away from the pack in front of Daleks everywhere and into a conveniently placed stationery closet was F-

AA you're missing my point. It would have been piss easy not to have fallen into this problem. It only exists because he's trying to be a smart arsed twat.

Frankly, I don't care how many other people noticed this although almost all of fandom did, oh no, wait, Rusty's done a real life handwave and decided they're not fans. So do fans count or not? If so, why bollocks up something simple? If not, why throw in references to the First Doctor's descriptions of Gallifrey? Or SPACE CRABS? You can't have it both ways. Plus way to insult the viewing populace.