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

I really liked Rose during the first new season of Doctor Who, but now it's hard to think of anyone that's more overrated/annoying.

But the real best bit was when Wilf headed a small wicker ball thing across the room to celebrate the Earth/universe being saved.

A visit to Charlie Chaplin next series?

Dudes. Some of you guys are amazingly negative. Sure there's continuity problems, sure there's a shit episode every once in a while. But overall the series has been fantastic. I'm a big fan of Buffy/Angel/Firefly/Alias/Lost/BSG etc. so it's not like I don't like shows that do put in insane amounts of effort towards continuity/character and plot development, but this show is warm and fun for the most part with some special occasional, thought-provoking, fantastic stuff. You can have your Blinks mixed in with your Sontaran Experiments. The show isn't perfect, but I'm not sure what more you can really expect for such a broad audience show.

Call me crazy, but I think the season had the most consistent writing episode to episode since the Eccleston season.

In short, internet nerdity, darn it to heck.

I think aldo was this nerdy before the internet, to be fair :-)

I don't share this feeling re. Rose. It's Billie Piper, for heaven's sake. She's a very attractive woman. What's not to buy?

Rose is whiny and rubbish, regardless of how attractive the actress playing her is.

I like the show, I just wish it wasn't all about how everyone in the universe wants to toss the Doctor's salad.

The Rose Doctor relationship is by its very nature more complex because it went from amazing brooding mentor (Eccleston) to sexy bloke. She forced his regeneration so feels a touch responsible, but also was rewarded for her hard work with Northern Doctor with Tennant. The only other companion who has a similar arc is Sarah Jane (wheras Peri comes close but drew the dud short straw of Baker C).

The beauty of the Doctor Donna relationship was almost as if after Rose and Martha, he had learned his lesson.

Of course there is another reading that Tennant/Tate Doctor is being punished for genocide with a lifetime of living with lispy Piper.

The other interesting thing is while the parallel universe is locked blah blah blah, it means that Tennant can always do a future comeback for the odd crossover episode.

Right the aldo. I hope you don't take any of this the wrong way, I love reading your insanely detailed posts and missed them when you weren't on this thread. BUT.

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.

I don't like spoilers. They actually do spoil my enjoyment of tv shows. I just much prefer seeing things fresh, as far as possible. So I try to avoid them. You seem to think that, if something was mentioned in a 200 word article on page twelve of the Daily Mail four months ago, well then, EVERYBODY know that already, surely!? So it's fine to mention it to anyone else, who doesn't (for whatever reason), whether they want to or not.

Now sure, I could just avoid reading any threads about any telly ever. But another thing I really enjoy about tv is speculation! All that stuff we were doing here last week, where people were trying to guess how the regeneration would pan out, was LOADS of fun! I can't help thinking that, if you'd been around, you'd have sniffed at us all and said something like "pff, EVERYONE knows he's not going to regenerate because he's been seen dressed as the doctor filming the Christmas special in Cardiff" and then...well, you'd have killed that speculation, and stopped the fun.

Another way of looking at it: how to cause the least negative feeling in the world! If you tell me about something that's going to happen, that removes a bit of future enjoyment from my life. If you DON'T mention something which is going to happen, and which you know about, does that really remove much enjoyement from yours? Really? Surely it doesn't (unless you have some warped "haha, I get off on being more knowledgeable than other people about this, and letting them know that I am!" thing going on). So why is it such a big deal to ask you not to do it?

I just think "spoiler" means "anything which hasn't been screened yet".

Anyway, I don't think we're going to agree. And I also think it's something which affects other ILE threads, not just the Doctor Who ones. So maybe we should let the community decide!

Ergo:
POLL: What constitues a "spoiler"? JimD and aldo disagree. Take sides here!

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.

That's a really good point.

Yes, er, you can. I'm sure there are some nerdy Who fans who don't really mind much about continuity, change in tone, etc. (NB, when I say "some nerdy Who fans," I mean me.)

(i.e. nerdy old-Who fans)

I know we're all on an internet message board, but that doesn't mean we also choose to keep up with all interviews and such things about upcoming seasons of shows. Really, I like discussing shows as they're happening, but I don't understand why people seek out spoilers - it's deliberately taking away a portion of enjoyment from watching television. I didn't know of any of those things aldo wrote of.

Basically what happens a lot in these threads is that someone will say something spoilery and then I have to avoid the thread, since I really don't want to know these things, until the end of the season - which is a real bummer. Particularly on these boards, because it's just one thread for that entire show/season.

I mean, fuck, did someone just post some Dark Knight spoilers in the voting thread? I caught a glimpse and closed the window pretty fast.

^^^ This is me too, sadly. I've dipped my toe in the thread towards the end of the series cos I've really been enjoying it, but I don't read newspapers or Radio Times's or visit fansites or click on Wikipedia cos I don't wanna know what's going to happen in something I haven't watched yet. I don't even watch the trailers most of the time cos of pointless spoilers. I guess the answer is either a separate spoiler and non-spoiler thread or just not bothering to read this one. Tho it feels like it has been reasonably spoiler-free this year.

Jim, I will buy you a drink next time I see you. I know exactly what you mean but I fear I am too far gone to turn around. I can't back out fo this now though, lest I become Kylie. I hope you understand.

The other interesting thing is while the parallel universe is locked blah blah blah, it means that Tennant can always do a future comeback for the odd crossover episode.

I thought of this too. And now that his character can age, Tennant can go back to the well whenever the show wants him. (What's his name, by the way? Is Rose going to keep calling him "The Doctor"?) It's a nice move to keep Tennant on tap as it were ahem.

As for the Doctor wuv, c'mon he's David Tennant. It would be strange if everyone DIDN'T have a crush on him.

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

THE DOCTOR = BOB

this is actually the 2nd part of the name of my cat

i don't know how to feel about this final episode :/

i guess, fine

kind of creeped out by surrogate doctor kissing rose
like having a supercrush on the doctor is fun n all but wld you really want something to come of it in reality?? i mean, part of his crushworthyness is b/c he is the ever-tortured all-knowing powerful doctor one can never really have

very sad abt donna's return to regular life - did anyone mention her ring yet? and why it was glinting? felt purposeful. but maybe not.
the memory wipe made me a have a sad wall-e moment

DON'T SPOILER WALL-E ON THE DOCTOR WHO THREAD!!!!

(I'm kidding)

:D

Also, ha! Yep aldo, I do understand. :)

Gosh, I'm emoticonning too much today.

The ring thing reminded me of the very end of S3 (obviously an opening for the Master to return at some point) but I think it might've just been something they didn't do intentionally, despite how weird it looked.

Blimey there was a lot to read this morning.

1. RTD is not a great writer, though he has done some great scripts, and if it weren't for him I wouldn't have this show to watch, so I'm glad he was around, and I'm also glad he's going and Moffatt is coming on.

2. Richard Dawkins was on TV as a noted world-famous super-rationalist ("The stars are different, so we have definitely moved in space!") not as a biologist.

3. I can't believe people are upset about the state of human/Time Lord hybrid genitals, and that they think they have convincing arguments about why said genitals would or would not be there... IF THESE ARGUMENTS COME FROM THE VARIOUS SPIN-OFF BOOKS, YOU ARE VERY SILLY. It's obvious those books don't really count, as the show's willingness to take ideas from them and do them properly on-screen shows.

4. If the cliffhanger thing means excitement is always killed, why was everyone on this thread (me included) acting like a junkie denied their fix all week?

Between the numerous shots of Donna's ring and then her staring into space hearing her heartbeat, I thought they might've been trying to misdirect us into thinking she was a Time Lady in disguise. Which I guess she kind of was, but not in the traditional pocketwatch way.

4. If the cliffhanger thing means excitement is always killed, why was everyone on this thread (me included) acting like a junkie denied their fix all week?

Can't speak for anyone else, but I hoped, because it was the series finale, they might have dispensed with this lame "solve it in 10 seconds" thing and actually done something exciting with it for once (see hope upthread that it was going to be David Morrissey and that him and Tennant would be doing Christmas as a "Two Doctors" kind of thing). The fact that it was yawn yawn same old same old was kind of par for the course, and a crushing disappointment to me that they didn't take an opportunity to dispense with the formula. Torchwood killed off two major characters at the end of their last series with little fanfare, and it would have been great if Doctor Who had had the balls to do the same.

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.

It's pretty obvious RTD isn't talking about ALL OLD-SKOOL FANS or even all old-skool fans on the internet when he gets all 'lol mingmongs'. One of the things I like about the show is the way it simultaneously panders to and trolls different sections of the original fanbase.

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

THE DOCTOR = BOB

this is actually the 2nd part of the name of my cat

-- rrrobyn, Tuesday, 8 July 2008 01:30 (9 hours ago) Bookmark Link

Argh sorry, Bob is the defiler of worlds.

3. I can't believe people are upset about the state of human/Time Lord hybrid genitals, and that they think they have convincing arguments about why said genitals would or would not be there

also that love = sexual intercourse

One of the things I like about the show is the way it simultaneously panders to and trolls different sections of the original fanbase.

-- Matt DC, Tuesday, 8 July 2008 10:07 (56 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Absolutely otm. I LOVE watching the more desperate fannies get all worked up and cry and threaten to never ever ever ever ever ever watch again only to whinge about exactly the same things a week later.

It's ironic that the talk has turned to genitals, since RTD was on record in the Guardian yesterday saying that he'd never introduce a woman doctor for the reason that parents would have to talk about genital swapping with their kids.

Perhaps he should introduce a male doctor with a outie belly button first to ease them into the concept.

Is a pregnant David Tennant the logical extension of nu-Who?

under RTD, yes

Funny that he's prissy about that, but was perfectly OK with sentient paving slabs giving blow jobs.

ysi?

Check out 'Love and Monsters' Tracer...

Torchwood killed off two major characters at the end of their last series with little fanfare, and it would have been great if Doctor Who had had the balls to do the same.

Yeah, but Torchwood is (allegedly) an adult show.

What's so great about killing people off anyway? What happened to Donna was much more depressing than a 'heroic death' (or otherwise would've been).

I don't necessarily mean the killing specifically, just the doing-something-unexpected. They managed to blindside most people at the end of the first nu-Who series by introducing David Tennant a whole episode earlier than expected (Eccleston had been expected to do the Christmas ep), don't see why they couldn't have done something similar, rather than this whole load of soapy predictable nonsense with extra cheese on top.

Bookies stopped taking bets on D Morrissey being the new Doctor before the finale, with some people betting ££££ on it satisfying their suspicions. Glad that was all rong, even if the way the regeneration was thwarted was a bit shit.

I was pretty sure Tennant wasn't going to properly regenerate mostly because RTD just didn't give him enough of a final flourish in The Stolen Earth.

I was pretty sure Tennant wasn't going to properly regenerate mostly because of all the spoilers indicating otherwise.

I was thinking the 'threefold man' thing might mean the last ep would be a Three Doctors scenario featuring 9, 10 and 11.

I was pretty sure he wasn't going to regenerate because the way he got winged by that Dalek death-ray was so rubbish. "Rose! Aii I have been shotted!"

I knew deep down that it would be a cheap fake-out.

German Daleks over Youtube. Still funny.

whoa this thread. In retrospect, this last weekend was the clearly the worst time for me to go off for the weekend to a place with no web access/cable channels because i missed a) this and b) apparently, THE wimbledon final of the century. or something. (Have caught up with a, still upset about missing b.)

Loved a lot of this and OMG HATED a lot of it too. which is pretty much how I feel every nu-Who season finale ever, hooray!

I knew there was going to be a lot of cringe-y Rose/Doctor moments (come on, we all did) and I'm not even completely against the idea of the Doctor being in love with Rose, but that resolution *still* turned out to be ten times more awful than I expected it to be. one googly-eyed Doctor is more than enough, thanks.

Otherwise, frankly I thought Tennant was amazing in this episode - possibly his best "I bear 900 years of loneliness and repressed rage" performance. and even with so many things happening all at once, he just seems to carry the show so effortlessly, and I think only Catherine Tate so far has managed to match his energy.

Obvs love love Donna and her ending was unexpectedly bleak and mean and moving - I don't even know if it was brave or just completely horrible of RTD to do that to her character. it was pretty upsetting anyway, after the fun Doctor-Donna bits earlier.

'That button there!'