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

We need to form an official clique and give it a memetastic name in order to confuse people.

FURTDAYCM Cru?

Fuck U (to be DOWN WIV DA KIDZ) RTD And Yr Cunty Mates

DWZC

Hahahaha if the last episode is as preposterous as what I've read then it really is preposterous. But still possibly less so than the ending of last year's.

preposterous vs boring

I really, really wish I hadn't emailed aldo for what happens at the end.

Hurts yr brane, doesn't it.

only the overdone harpy bitch mother trope, making Mrs. Noble #3 in this series

I could almost convince myself that RTD dragging this one out again and again for any mother character or anything resembling it (alien foster nurse from Adipose episode, hello) is kind of irresponsible for a family show.

I'm probably just being silly here, but still, there's young kids watching this, probably quite often with their mothers; it just seems a bit rude that RTD wants to cram in "this is what mothers are really like" every week.

(Let them decide that for themselves! They probably will as soon as they hit their teens anyway.)

The mum of the main child character in 'The Sarah Jane Adventures' is another mum from hell, too.

Don't kids see that as escapism, though? I doubt there's a whole new generation of burgeoning mum-haters because of this show.

Quite like to see the post-Rusty reboot do a series without a family, and without having to pop back to London in 2010 every few episodes. I'm sure the viewers won't run away and never return for lack of identification.

Although I generally think stories on Earth > stories on other planets > stories on fucking identikit industrial space stations with lots of high platforms and dry ice.

The high platforms and dry ice are getting ridiculous, yes.

Pulling away from earth and identifiable characters is just too great a risk to take for a show that relies on mass appeal in order to be made at all.

Also I'd like to see some stories in modern-day Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow, Leeds etc.

Pulling away from earth and identifiable characters is just too great a risk to take for a show that relies on mass appeal in order to be made at all.

is this more of a problem now than it was in the 60s/70s/80s?

Surely the Angel of the North is going to come off its pedestal at some point?

They could get round the identifiable characters thing by having a larger entourage in the Tardis but yeah I see your point.

Dr Who is all about dry ice, especially where unit involved (good to see this last week). Quite frankly I'm always a little dissapointed when Dr Who doesn't look like this:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2246/1880122176_327d9c73ae.jpg

They could get round the identifiable characters thing by having a larger entourage in the Tardis

But this is an inherent problem with OOH DOCTOR I WUB YOU :SADEYES: bollocks. For all this might improve things (Mickey's one real trip, the kid from the Pompeii episode would have been a companion in any other era of the show) it can't be allowed to happen because it would fundamentally alter Rusty's will-they-won't-they dynamic.

Lizo on CBBC has given tomorrow night's episode the lowest rating of any NuWho and even a couple of the most severe Rusty boosters on some other forums have agreed it's the 'least good' NuWho yet.

Oh you'll like this - "Freema gives her first duff performance in this episode. There's a scene with her and a Hath in a bog with is worse than the cliffhanger in Dragonfire."

Both of those seem pretty unbelievable. And this came from someone who still kind of liked the episode.

Freema gives her first duff performance in this episode

OK, this person has no clue.

Yeah, my point being if they thought the rest were good, and this was bad, how utterly terrible must it be?

Oh fuck. Please let this not be the case. I don't think I could handle another shit episode this year.

We both enjoyed this year's Torchwood far more than Doctor Who. (For perspective, we did not like Torchwood at all the first time round.)

I'm always wishing they'll pick up companions from other time periods, ie a Victorian adventuress, a pirate, an ancient Chinese scholar, whatever, rather than just modern-day folk. That's partly why companions like Jamie were groovy.

wtf, here at karaoke bar. why the fuck are there _8_ billie piper tracks in the songbook?! she didn't have any singles that charted in america, did she?!

We both enjoyed this year's Torchwood far more than Doctor Who. (For perspective, we did not like Torchwood at all the first time round.)

Here too.

Yeah.

Mothers' day tomorrow, so I won't see this one until the day after, and I could not care less.

Mothers' day tomorrow

This scared me more than anything in Dr Who. Bloody Americans.

Would be quite good if in a future episode the Dr was put on trial for killing off the world's entire bird population. Aside from emus, peacocks and penguins.

Also hopefully we get to see young Bernard Cribbins in the 1960s/1950s at some point.

and I could not care less.

And the fact that this is your 49857689th post on a Dr Who tread makes that clear.

It's a contrast to the past few years of counting down the minutes each week.

(Mothers' day tomorrow)

This scared me more than anything in Dr Who. Bloody Americans.

Um, huh?

You made me think it was Mother's Day tomorrow. It isn't, at least not in the UK.

Britisher Mother's Day is in March, hence teh fearrrrr.

Oh, well I'm not American, so there's my fear.

(also teh fear that I have to see my mother tomorrow)

OH FFS

I spy a spin off show

I feel dirty.

That felt like eps 3 and 4 of an over-padded McCoy era story.

Looks like Rusty has found a new way to get Rose Tyler: Earth Defence made.

I broke up with my girlfriend this afternoon, so I decided to just switch off my critical faculties and enjoy it, and you know what, it was just the ticket. Not ashamed to say I choked up a bit at the end considering the circumstances.

Slightly reminiscent of a Hartnell story, what with the traps and the mazes and the problem solving.

Slightly reminiscent of The Search For Spock at the end, I thought.

Horrendous dialogue aside, I actually enjoyed this. I don't know if my expectations were just low because of the reviews upthread.

Can someone explain how she was created though?

McCoy story, Hartnell story - funny it reminded me of a Davison era story. Sort of a (initially) inconsequential, cheapo runaround in someone else's boring war, which the Doc ends up ending.
I started off not liking it, but I thawed a little by the end. The emo was ladelled on a bit thick, and I don't know why Martha was even in this really. But... yeah. Okay, in the end. Catherine Tate had all the best lines, and stole the show.

So. Is Jenny going to be (yet another) ally who is going to pop up every so often? In her rocket ship, at the end she reminded me of Chris Barrie's "smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast" chracter in Red Dwarf.

baker (t) stories also recalled - underworld, face of evil

The Hath were pretty old school looking.

Very old school Who in both good and bad ways (the good being the proper sci-fi short storyness of the 7 day war - the bad being the "oh noes it is a pointless war). Jenny was nowhere near as annoying as she could have / should have been* and open ended enough for hand in box fun in a later series. Some terrible dialogue, Tate wins the day again and the real feel of a Baker four perter condensed into 45 mins (yay!). Hath were very plasticky but a really nice concept (except for their boiler suits).

I kinda liked it.

*When she regenerated at the end, for a second I thought she had turned into Billie which would have been an awesome WTF, even if it made no sense. She should have changed her face at least though.

Her keeping the same face when she regenerated kinda didn't make sense.

Fucking nice face, mind you.

Someone on another board suggested that she didn't regenerate, but it was the terraforming gases that brought her back to life. Maybe the Hath that Martha dimwittedly got killed in the bog will emerge from the ground, good as new!

Before this season started, I read some old old interview with RTD where he talked about how much he hated guns and violence, which seemed like an OK-enough sentiment. But this new level of the Doctor going around yelling about how much he hates guns and violence just feels lazy.

Definitely the worst nu-Doctor Who episode so far.

*When she regenerated at the end, for a second I thought she had turned into Billie which would have been an awesome WTF, even if it made no sense.

Yeah, that occurred to me as well.

What was with all the "I don't kill people, I don't do genocide" bollocks, btw? This is/was the "no second chances" doctor, right?

I started off not liking it, but I thawed a little by the end. The emo was ladelled on a bit thick, and I don't know why Martha was even in this really. But... yeah. Okay, in the end. Catherine Tate had all the best lines, and stole the show.

-- DavidM, Sunday, 11 May 2008 05:43 (15 hours ago) Bookmark Link

I'm with you on this.

Also, Agyeman's acting was fine considering she basically did monologues for half of it.

the writers make it very difficult for martha/freema - she was better last series i'm sure

jenny's resurrection seemed more in line with captain jack than the doctor.

Yeah I didn't really see the point of Martha being in this one, other than Freema Agyeman was contracted to appear in a certain number of episodes. Shame because the pace of this one felt a bit rushed, could have done with more space.

I was disappointed from the start that she wasn't the Doctor's original daughter/Susan's mother and I struggled to get over that diappointment and care much about what was happening for the rest of the episode. The Hath looked pretty cool though and Jenny = rowr. The ending was totally 'Oh HAI I HAS A SPINOFF' though but bringing Jenny to life just to kill her 45mins later seemed pointless as well. She might make a good companion in the future.

Despite the writers over-egging the pudding with the dialogue, that was probably Tennant's best 'gravitas' moment, but god I'm starting to hate that swelling sub-Celtic Moods orchestral theme that appears every time there's a scene of great emotional importance.

The next episode looks awesome though, hope they ratchet up the creepy factor on this one.