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

november?! bah.

That was a pretty fun episode! i alternated between being really charmed and really annoyed by lady person but ultimately thought she was a good one-off sidekick.

i was hoping that weird eating things were vashta nerada - in keeping with the "of the dead" theme.

This felt oddly restrained for a Bank Holiday special - I'd expected all guns blazing. Actually after 15mins or so I had a feeling this would be Rusty ripping off Lost but with a bus in a desert, and felt strangely disappointed that there wasn't more weird shit going on on the planet itself.

It seemed a bit like a showcase for Tennant to go through his whole repertoire of Tennant things (manic, flirty, sycophantic, emo) one more time, rather than a full on story in its own right (far-off everything-eating stingray swarm? Is that the best you can do?) But then again the full repertoire of Tennant things is terrific so I'm happy to see it again knowing that it's end is near.

The portentious part at the end was the only bit that really excited me though. "Your song is ending" we all know about already. "It is coming through the darkness" = Gallifrey, surely? It's the only really big rabbit Rusty has left in his hat. I'd like to see The Master again though, unless he's played by James Nesbitt which is probably inevitable.

This was all right, but didn't quite have anything as fun as the ridiculous giant robot from the Christmas special. Ryan is pretty damn hot, but I don't know, maybe it was the bangs and the outfit, didn't work for me, and her character was generally more annoying than charming. Chilling ending bit was good, though.

November????? Shit!

Rather enjoyed this--had a mini-movie feel because of the obviously upped budget and so on. Pity the way the wormhole was created was basically the same as 'Superman flies around the world anti-clockwise really fast and goes backwards in time!'. Also like the chilling ending.

Poor effort I thought. The premise was OKish, but no real drama, and far too much I wuv you Doctor bullshit at the end. And Michelle Ryan's character was just crap.

I was looking forward to the fly-aliens coming on board the bus too, thought that would have been an interesting setup. Michelle Ryan's obnoxiousness and man-faceness took away from the overall episode, I know it's law for there to be an attractive female sidekick though but perhaps they could have worked around it and had the various passengers accompany him for his

IIRC there were pictures of John Simm on set filming the next episode.

Really liked Michelle Ryan's character in this.

Quite liked this episode, but I'd have rather one of both of the fly dudes had survived, coulda sacrificed a human or two in exchange.

Great done-in-one, and definite improvement on the Christmas episode, I thought. Ryan a nice antidote to the usual RTD screaming harpy. And low on the cringe factor, with the exception of the "I like to do things... EXTREME" line. Yikes.

"I like to do things... EXTREME" line. Yikes.

It was a very Poochie moment.

Maybe I'm taking it all too seriously, but I felt that they really misjudged the mood of the general populace at the moment. Does anyone really want to see an uber-posh character who only steals for the larks (unlike those horrible plebs) when they're fearing for the security of their jobs and homes?

How do the anti-gravity clamp things allow the bus to, like, move forward/accelerate etc.?

This RUINED the whole thing for me.

I agree the aristo thing is a load of cobblers, but don't really think the general populace has a mood in that sense or that such a thing could matter

anyway it's all on TV again now!

I hated it, and wanted to punch Michelle Ryan's smug face back through that wormhole again. Also, y'know, Lee Evans was in it. He can fuck off as well.

The portentious part at the end was the only bit that really excited me though. "Your song is ending" we all know about already. "It is coming through the darkness" = Gallifrey, surely? It's the only really big rabbit Rusty has left in his hat.

Aye, that was OK. But it took a long time to get there. Doesn't Martha still work for UNIT? He was all on about how he keeps losing people, fuck's sake, look them up when you're hanging around with their colleagues, eh (not to mention the fact that his hand's off doing things with Rose)? At least ask after them? If you're going to be all emo, at least be coherently emo. Also, nice to see the "no second chances" doctor letting a crook off with crookyness and letting her nick a space-bus into the bargain.

I reckon the Doctors gonna get offed by an evil Santa.

Played by Brian Blessed.

i thought the portentious bit was probably the most eye-rolling moment and just rehashing same old thing. "your song is coming to and end..." stfu already

but after last season finale i'm not so into Who now unless it's Moffat

This kind of reminded me of the Langoliers. o_O

Doesn't Martha still work for UNIT? He was all on about how he keeps losing people, fuck's sake, look them up when you're hanging around with their colleagues, eh (not to mention the fact that his hand's off doing things with Rose)?

I heard RTD was angry with Freema Agyeman for doing L&O instead of Torchwood, so he's unlikely to write anything about how great Martha is right now.

she was fired by UNIT for mentioning Project Indigo to Jack and then telling him 'no-one's supposed to know about it'

lol @ ppl being all "waah he let her get away with it". Jeez, lighten up.

If that was at me, Tennant's doctor was introduced as being a hard bastard who didn't give anyone second chances. Rusty's quite big on continuity and themes and shit, he seems to have forgotten that one in favour of woo-lovey-dovey bollocks.

Rusty had given us ample evidence that he will always throw continuity and themes and shit away in favor of woo-lovey-dovey bullshit all the way back to the on New Adventure he wrote with the 7th Doctor for Virgin Books.

Tennant's doctor was introduced as being a hard bastard who didn't give anyone second chances

He was?

"Don't you think she looks tired?"

"No second chances. That's what kind of man I am."

Eccleston was the same (if not more so) tho

Also the Doctor didn't let her get away with anything, he didn't let her on the Tardis but at the same time he had no reason to want to see her arrested especially given that gold chalice she nicked helped them get out of the desert. These are ridiculously minor things to be finding fault over.

Ach, it's a wee thing that's bugged me for a while, not just in this episode. He was going to save fucking DAVROS!

supposedly Donna softened him up (as he her). otherwise yeah he would've just committed genocide against the Daleks like he drowned the spider things (altho that seemed awfully inconsistent itself given his past form). blame the writers.

Tom Baker's Doctor dithered over destroying the Daleks at the moment of their creation and ultimately blew it. This isn't a new thing.

whereas Hartnell basically just said "fuck you, I'm out" and ran away and Troughton said "oh dear" and ran away and Pertwee said "JUDO CHOP!" and ran away when it didn't work and Davison said "I'm peaceful!" then tried to shoot them all and CBaker said "I will melt your face" and then proceeded to melt Davros's face and McCoy said "lol blow yrselves up" which the Daleks did and McGann said "Daleks? I don't think I'm allowed to fight those unless they are in really shitty stories written by John Peel"

haha. That McCoy was a wily one!

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has noticed and is upset with the 10th Doctor's slow descent into docility and sentimentality.

So is the next one the one where he regenerates? Or the one after that?

Maybe the next one is set on future earth and the Tardis turns up outside Holloway prison just as little Zoe Salter checks out.

Slater, even. You know. Lady Lara Croft with the Ethan Hunt kitbag.

i assumed the next one would be August Bank Holiday weekend. he's not regenerating until the fourth one (next year?) right?

Last three specials can be considered a trilogy, apparently, but looks to have looser connections than Utopia did with Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords. First one is on early November (although Hallowe'en is not ruled out) and the last two will be 'around Christmas/New Year'.

Anyway... this was sort of OK. Way too full of basic writing gaffes (once on the other planet they talk about fixing the bus so the Faraday Cage is reinstated, for example, but never actually get around to fixing it; or why, having established big metal vehicles are safe, the Doctor doesn't just ask UNIT to drive an armoured car through to pick them up, then close the wormhole himself; or exactly how you can remove the capstone from an ancient dome by hand without it collapsing and later pass through it while remaining inside the building; or how you can see things on the horizon "a hundred miles away", and yet not see a giant spaceship which you can arrive at on foot quicker than things which are flying towards you fast enough to warp space...) and Rusty's continuing to give himself timing issues (The Next Doctor being in the past was supposed to enable him to fix the 'one year in the future' problems, but then he had to go and mention it was after The Stolen Earth and put himself right back in trouble) and there was no real plot to speak of, but it wasn't any worse than Partners In Crime.

RUSTYBOWDOWNANDWORSHIPMEIAMSOCLEVARRWATCH: Did you see? Did you? The space alium things looked a bit like sharks? WELL THEY WERE SHARKS, RIGHT? And. Did you see? The Doctor made the bus fly? That's a bit like jumping, isn't it? YES IT IS. And. Did you see? The bus jumped over the sharks. HAHAHA THOSE FANS WON'T BE ABLE TO ACCUSE ME OF JUMPING THE SHARK BECAUSE I HAVE DONE IT LITERALLY. HAHAHA I AM SO CLEVARR.

I wish I was making that up, but he boasted about it on a commentary track.

Ummm.

I have a feeling you've been trolled there.

They looked much more like stingrays than sharks. It sounds like the sort of thing that occurred to him after filming and he threw it in there to wind up the ming-mongs.

Tennant mentions it first, and he's most congratulatory to Rusty on how clever he is. Could well be trolling, but there's a fair few people playing it straight for minimum payback.

I thought this was very good!

I am a little sick of people who can see the future but then refuse to communicate about it in anything other than cryptic speech fragments. It's like, are you TRYING to be annoying? Wouldn't a nice or helpful person try to explain a bit more, with normal sentences?

I also thought the Doctor and his irritating posh thief companion spent quite awhile just kind of slouching around after RUNNING from a DANGEROUS STORM that threatened to ENGULF THEM ALL.

But those were my only two complaints. I thought it was very moving. Not even Lee Evans' tired schtick could deflate the warm glow at the end.

No I have one other complaint: I thought the bug-people were pretty hard done by.

My favorite line was Lee Evans' explanation of how he had figured something out: "I set the device to register what it CAN'T DETECT! And then reversed the signal!" The Doctor: "Brilliant!"

I agree somewhat with Hand!

especially about the people who can see the future!

Only somewhat? :(

I agree very much with Hand

the only things I disagree with are

a) I'm not sure I thought the scientist was irritating
b) I didn't think the chick was irritating either

I also liked the line with the scientist that you liked, Hand

I should clarify that I thought the chick was irritating in exactly the way the scriptwriters intended - i.e. cocky and entitled. There is a strand of TV criticism - especially regarding Doctor Who - that takes in another level of irritation, that is, people will say a character is irritating because they don't behave the way a character like that Ought to Behave (in the Who universe, in that particular situation), as if the critic is a co-creator of the production and is making a point about directing or acting or scriptwriting technique. I do this too. But in this case I didn't mean to imply that she was irritating because she detracted from the story or the Who gestalt or anything like that - just that her character was the sort of person who would annoy the hell out of me in real life. Which was probably intentional. Though why Who would fall for someone like that is a mystery. If I were the Doctor, I would have left her behind on Earth simply because she's a stuck-up, over-clever pain in the ass rather than because I think so highly of her that I wouldn't want her to get killed in a galactic space battle. And frankly prison's what she deserves. In the story she comes from an aristocratic family that, more likely than not, acquired its power long ago via blood and the sword. After centuries of slow and uneven progress, the treasures amassed by these elites have, some of them, filtered into the public domain and are freely available for all in museums. And now she wants to take them back! Into the clink with her.