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

aaand a bit from that episode

Fuck me, the Christmas special doesn't actually air UNTIL Christmas?! But but but torrent speeds at my parents' house are horrible!

Anyway, now watching the last two eps of Sarah Jane. Having the Brigadier and his baritone around is always great, even in his older, checkered- and cabby cap-bedecked form. His appearances on the audios are well worth tracking down. The Sontaran actor in these ones isn't as much fun as Mike TheCoolGuy's sharper bluster but what are you gunna do. His sidearm looks like something you'd see attached to a Namco shooter in a video arcade.

We're going to have a dry spell of a long time, aren't we. The first of the specials isn't until Easter, right? Is the Sarah Jane show worth watching? Like, worth one's time more than shotgunning Torchwood?

just rewatched last year's christmas one. they always seem better after 2nd viewing.

Sarah Jane is lots of fun, but very much the kids' show (not that that's actually a fault): has something of the vibe of 1970s Pertwee stuff, with less political commentary and better effects.

or else represents a WHOLE new level of disinformation out of Upper Boat

Chiwetel Ejiofor? Really?

Oh I love him, that would be great.

I haven't been paying attention, have they announced a companion yet?

okay wait lololololol CATHERINE ZETA-JONES

I don't know what to believe any more.

Dan, the specials are going to have a different companion in each. I guess after that it's a Moffat clean slate?

Can we start the "bring back Sally Sparrow" campaign now?

You guys.

Have been appalled at the amount of commercials on BBC America during Who.

Since it's not really paced for ad breaks I can imagine how annoying that would be.

Tracer, it's mad: they have about five ad breaks every 30 minutes. No wonder America has an ADD problem.

For those who haven't seen this yet:

David Tennant on "Extras"

"He's hyperpodulating!"

Words fail me. Just... no.

(I had actually been quite enjoying it up till then. There must have been a giant shark in the Thames, because it jumped it on the way out.)

I quite enjoyed it. Certainly better than last years and the cyber king steam punk element was rather good.

The only bits that stuck in my craw were the "doctor saves the little boy" sequence and the "lets hear it for the doctor" crap.

ah that wasn't too bad, just giving him a little respect where it's due. nothing like the vomitous olympic torch sequence in season 2.

Giant steam-powered Cyberman stomping all over Victorian London, that's what I'm fucking talking about.

Other than that, meh.

But but but torrent speeds at my parents' house are horrible!

and I was right. 3 more hours til this finishes, dammit.

Problems for me were the usual RTD sentimentalities

"He needs a comapnion... wait, I SHALL DO IT FOR MY WIFE!"
"flashy flashy children running round... WAIT, AHA! I HAVE A SON AND HE'S TRAPPED ON THAT LEDGE HE COULDN'T HAVE POSSIBLY GOT TO!"
"The Doctor never gets any thanks, so let's all cheer for him!"

his ridiculous deus exes

Ah, wait, despite having established earlier that they came through the void when it broke down, let's give them enough time to steal piles of dalek techology, including a big stick that when I press it makes the giant robot that has already destroyed 10% of London (despite it never being on record) destroy another 40% by collapsing!

and his "twist finale that will have the fans wondering WHAT IS GOING ON??!!11!!ELEVEN" appears to have been the Doctor having dinner.

SWteampunk cyberman totally undone by "Oh yes, it's a CyberKing Mk XXII, I remember them using them on Brontosaurus Bogosian XVI". Also, Wickidewild-wild-Wickedewild-wild, what's that, Captain Frog?

I thought the first 20 minutes or so, culminating in the Doctor's unravelling of his doppelganger's mystery, were fantastic. The rest seemed tacked on and practically inseparable from nonsense.

Why did the cybermen's giant engine require children? Turning wheels and ropes? Anyone?

When the doctor "severed" Ms Hartigan's mental fusion with the cybermen, thus opening her mind and granting her full self-awareness of the horrible thing she had become, why did that lead to her - and the cybermen's - immediate self-destruction? Is there a logic there? I felt certain that once the Doctor had broken her link with the cybermen that they'd take up where they'd left off and kill her. It would have been just as quick and just as easy (with the added benefit of making some kind of sense).

She was horrified with it all but still had power over them all so killed them? (and herself due to guilt)?

Some actual lines to that effect might have helped. i.e. "What have I done? All this... is finished. (EXPLODE)" Instead of just like "aiiiiaaaghhhghghghahh!!!!!!! (EXPLODE)"

I thought the first 20 minutes or so, culminating in the Doctor's unravelling of his doppelganger's mystery, were fantastic. The rest seemed tacked on and practically inseparable from nonsense.

See? You are me. This possibly means you have beeen watching too much Jon.

I don't know what that means but yeah, it was like they had this cool idea but it was only a 20 minute idea and then they were like, the hell with it, after that let's just make it another story about Daleks oops I mean Cybermen creating a them-human hybrid and attempting to enslave humanity.

WHY DO THEY NEED CHILDREN TO MAKE THE MACHINE WORK? THEY HAVE AN ARMY OF UNSTOPPABLE TIRELESS ROBOTS.

http://slog.thestranger.com/files/2008/05/ComicBookGuy1.jpg

Last night's "Doctor Who Xmas Special" was, without a doubt, the worst episode ever. Rest assured that I was on the Internet within minutes, registering my disgust throughout the world.

I actually thought this episode was terrific, best Xmas special ever, up until Cyber-Kirwan at which point it jumped the shark very quickly. Main reasons:

1. Female mind too powerful for the Cybermen to conquer is starting to get tired as a plot device.

2. Giant Cyberman smashing up a city is BRILLIANT but why do it in the middle of the industrial revolution? That idea needed a proper season finale with guns and spaceships and things.

3. Nobody said "nobody steps on a church in my town".

I enjoyed it. Was this the first time since the show restarted that they've actually shown video or even images of the old series?

Also, I heard there was going to be some Adric ref in this. Was it cut, or did I miss it?

The children bit was enh; yes I know you needed something to push the guy over the edge and you wanted to really drive home the "THIS IS DICKENSIAN LONDON" part, but come on...

They're never going to have the original cyberman back, are they? No more Mondas/Telos ones?

I am so drunk I forgot this was on today. Will bittorrent now. Thank you all.

Well...twas better than the ridiculous Spaceship Titanic + Kylie we got last year. And steampunk is always fun. That said, Cybermen feel a bit tired at this point, and the initial idea was interesting and different enough that the episode deserved a better conclusion. Still, better than pretty much all but the first of Davies' Christmas Specials.

Ripping to shreds of Donna in that Christmas Special was great.

This one was alright, just felt weirdly superfluous. Still, amusing enough, and not terrible, so pretty much a win.

Ripping to shreds of Donna in that Christmas Special was great.

Agreed! Horrible and great.

yeah i liked this right up to when not-actual-Doc started getting his memories back and then it just got silly.

so uh now that cybermen have escaped from the void, i'm guessing this opens the possibility for the return of more freakin' daleks too (not the ones who were with davros but the ones who were sucked into the void at canary wharf).

I think it's sort of sweet that people imagine there's any kind of continuity across episodes beyond what's expedient.

Ahh aldo, I missed you so.

Nice episode. Head + shoulders above the horrible Kylie one. Cyber-Kirwan was a bit much but there were some really touching ideas throughout.

Very very obvious that Davies has run out of plots, though.

Oh and nice to see ALL the Doctors in correct order for probably the first time since the new series began. It's as though the new production finally feels comfortable acknowledging the old one.

I have a couple of other questions - those "info stamps" were like little Flash memory fobs right? How was it they were also used as weapons? And how did they end up among the faux Doctor's luggage in the first place?

They backfire and explode Cybermen or something. Spacey-wacey timey-wimey.

This Confidential is 3x as long as it needs to be.

To answer your second question, they ended up amongst his luggage because oh I don't know.

Why did the cybermen's giant engine require children? Turning wheels and ropes? Anyone?

dr said it was an 'engine' but he meant power plant turbine thingy. no energy grid in victorian london, and building a giant steampunk robot takes a lot of energy. and cybermen are above that kind of cheap physical labour.

Wouldn't a hole big enough for that thing to have come out of have drained the Thames?

No, stop it. I'll be here all day.

WIBBLY-WOBBLY TIMEY-WIMEY

the info stamps seemed less flash memory fob and more, uh, self-illuminating portable microfiche? it seemed like the faux-doctor turned up in london, discovered the cybermen (in the cellar of his new house where they had the void whatsit set up?), grabbed around for something to defend himself/family with and found a cache of infostamps, somehow picked up a damaged one about the doctor and aimed it at a cyberman in panic, pushed back the cyberman and convinced himself from the images that he was the man the infostamp was about, and took the rolls of infostamps with him as he left. Making infostamps into weapons was never explained beyond a reversing-the-polarity timeywimey handwave.

faux-doctor's little child was so artfully made up and wooden I assumed he was some kind of evil child doll who would secretly relay their plans to Ms Red Dress and got really confused when both faux-doctor and doctor took him on absolute trust. && i too sat there going 'you have an army of strong robots and you are using children to do manual labour? srsly ffs why not use them at least for something robots are bad at doing like distinguishing objects, darning, writing novels, etc'. plus 'woah this time the baddie is 1) clever and disaffected 2) a man-hater 3) a bad mother (mother, workhouse owner, what diff)' it's like the perfect RTD trifecta.

on the other hand, GIANT ROBOT STAMPING ON LONDON YESSSSSSS

haha timeywimey xposts.

ah, sorry, workhouse matron, not owner. whooo, even more bad-mother-tastic.

I'm really glad it's having a 'break' because I'm starting to get really bored with it.

Decent enough, but they solved the David-Morissey-Doctor mystery way too early -- the story sort of lost all its tension after that and became something of a rote "get the baddies" episode.

Still, having said that, it was relatively free of embarrassing RTD-isms, and Tennant was as good as ever. Could've done with a bit more of him, actually.

They're never going to have the original cyberman back, are they? No more Mondas/Telos ones?

This is a good thing. New Cybermen >>>>>> Original 'here have some gold aaah you're dead now' Cybermen.