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

i was talking to a who fan with kids (yes kids) and he says they didn't find this any more or less scary than other stories. if anything less so because the doctor always seemed safe and in control.

for sci fi types there were no surprises in the resolution of this story, but it was a well executed telly example of everything it keyed off.

there were a few moments when the doctor talked way too fast at the exact moment that he was explaining something crucial - i know that's his schtick but still

I'll be contrarian, as usual, and say it was OK, but not great, certainly the lesser episode of the two.

I watched it in the same room as a four year old who was by turn confused ("why is he doing that") and bored ("that happened last week", "I knew that already") but not scared in the slightest.

Yet again, the Doctor completely sidelined in his own show. What did he actually do apart from put the dead astronauts in the computer at the end?

I guess I'm just not cut out for modern television.

what was the ultra-emo line? something about "you've got the two necessary ingredients for genius: you're brilliant.... and unloved"

Did get a kick out of a television show known for scaring children on/behind sofas showing a terrified child on a sofa watching the doctor on television.

Also, I was randomly thinking earlier about how the show can wander thru genre, and how horror can permeate into both science fiction and fantasy, even as opposed as SF & fantasy are. I was trying to come up with the dividing line, a threshold of when your standard Who episode crosses the line from having your standard plot-required threatening monster/alien/situation.

e.g. why/how Blink was horror and Girl in the Fireplace wasn't.

haha, I said at the time that RTD would have written it so that she would have jumped behind the sofa, and was pleased that Moffatt hadn't been that obvious.

My six year old super-fan nephew was suitably unnerved by elements in last week's ep; particularly the concept of being dead but still conscious. I'm pretty sure he'd have found more to make his head spin in this week's.

Next week's episode sounds pretty damn good as well.

The screwdriver's not in a loop...
1. Future Doctor, with knowledge of River Song's death, makes screwdriver and gives it to her.
2. She carries it around until she dies.
3. Present Doctor uses it to save her to VR heaven. It gets fried in process.
4. The end.

My missus absolutely convinces River Song was the Doctor's missus. Also her little whisper suggests the Doc's name not as long and complicated as Romana's full Time Lady name.

Yeah the loops in this episode weren't actually that complex, compared to Blink at least, and the screwdriver isn't in any loop. Kudos to Moffatt for not putting any kind of date on when this was all happening, leaves a lot of scope for fleshing out around this story in the future. This was kind of his manifesto for getting the lead writer gig, maybe.

What did he actually do apart from put the dead astronauts in the computer at the end?

Struck a deal with the maneating shadow microbe dudes to let everyone in the computer leave the planet. Nothing could have happened without him being there, as opposed to the Ood one where he didn't actually need to be there at all.

Having to write River Song in at some point in the future is potentially awkward though, unless they've already signed the actress up for the 2010 series. I almost wanted this to be conveniently wrapped up in one episode.

The Donna in the computer stuff really could have had a whole series devoted to it, slow exposition and all that. People whinge about the slow pace of the answers arriving in Lost but this episode kind of showed what happens when you squeeze some brilliant ideas into not quite enough time. This is a minor quibble though and I can't wait to see what will happen when Moffatt gets the chance to work an over-arching plot over the course of a season or so.

Kudos to Moffatt for not putting any kind of date on when this was all happening

Think the Doctor might've said it was the 51st Century somewhere near the beginning of the first part.

Yeah, Wikipedia confirms that. Gosh I'm good at this geek thing.

Hang on how come there's no series next year??? ;_;

i am enjoying your being good at teh geek thing! :D
xpost
:(

No series because Tennant has other commitments and Rusty wants to do his Big Last Important Thing, so it's just four one-off specials (don't know if that includes Christmas, proper geeks to thread). Then it's back to normal the year after with Moffat at the helm.

Having to write River Song in at some point in the future is potentially awkward though, unless they've already signed the actress up for the 2010 series. I almost wanted this to be conveniently wrapped up in one episode.

I got the feeling it was wrapped up, and we don't have to meet her again - I got enough from what we saw there to get a sense of his future/her past together without them actually having to ever get round to explicitly showing any of it.

Though if they can sign up Alex Kingston, I'm all for it.

She did recognise Tennant as the Doctor though, so either she'll need to show up again before he regenerates, or there'll need to be a period between now and his next regeneration where he goes off and has his marriage, all off-screen. Which would leave us with a weird narrative gap...

there's tonnes of shit that goes on that we don't see, I don't see why we have to see this. I agree it would be weird as conventional story-telling goes, but this isn't conventional story-telling.

The bit where he says there's only one moment when he would ever tell anyone his name made it sound like she knows him when he dies. Or he screams it out during sex. Maybe if she's bringing him back from different times she's bringing him back from different regenerations ("I've never seen you this young" = I've never seen this incarnation.) It would explain why he's not around anymore in her future and why she misses him. And the screwdriver.

there's tonnes of shit that goes on that we don't see, I don't see why we have to see this

Because it's a really big and significant thing in his life? I'm pretty sure they've thought this through though and she'll be back sooner rather than later.

Well, I'm not really enough of an expert to say this with any authority, but I think that while there have always been implied untelevised adventures going on, they've always usually been fairly throwaway things, haven't they? And Doc getting married etc wouldn't be throwaway, it'd need to be a major event. Plus it'd need to happen during a companionless period, so we'd have to leave him on his own at some point, then pick the story up later, with him grieving but looking for a new tardis buddy. I just think Kingston coming back is more likely. (XPs)

But Billie saw Ecclescake die and never got to know his real name. Also River said something about not wanting him to regenerate so she knows it happens, so maybe she saw that happen somewhere after she met him, before she went to the library? Which would mean her having to be around for Tennant's regeneration into the next incarnation, so yeah, I guess we have to see her in that case. I'm quite happy with Great Big Events not happening on screen (will be glad if we never see the Time War, tbh) though, because it means geeky theorising and people not going "WTF is that it?" when we finally get round to seeing them.

I meant when he dies forever, no regenerating afterwards.

If River knows him that well perhaps he's told him when his regenerations happen? She had his diary aswell of course.

Well, if she's seen him die, then she's alone when she gets to the library and has good reason to kill herself, but wasn't there something that implied they were still together when she went there? Aarggh, need to watch again now.

this is all disproving my "I don't need to see this storyline involving Dr's wife" obviously, since I'm convincing myself it goes on from Tennant-version to death.

Dudes she hasn't seen him die, she learns his real name when they get married, it's really obvious!

I didn't think she'd seen him die, there was something that implied that they were still together when she went to the library (though not her reaction when they first encountered each other there, don't think, but that might have been due to the fact that she was by that stage used to him looking like whoever-plays-the-next-doctor)

He took her out for dinner or something and then got all tear-y, she realised why once she'd decided to wire herself up to the computer. It'd be possible for the writers to claim later on that she knows him well enough that she can recognise him in a regeneration she hasn't previously met, but the circumstances of him appearing in the deserted library after she'd messaged him should also have been enough to tip her off.

Or he screams it out during sex.

i hate you

this episode kind of showed what happens when you squeeze some brilliant ideas into not quite enough time.

yeah this was luvly emma b's take - "too much stuff"

Or he screams it out during sex.

Is screaming your own name out during sex common then? I mean, your partner's name or possibly Kylie but your own?

Matt DC OTM - the only time you have to use say your real name would be during a marriage ceremony.

You know about Time Lord weddings, do you? Do we even know Time Lords have marriage (ie in the classic series, or even the multi spin-offs)?

Tennant mentioned his wedding in one recentish episode, I'm pretty sure. Presumably from some pre-Unearthly Child days.

in Blink even, i think? "i'm rubbish at weddings, especially my own" or something like that.

SPOILER: The Doctor starts a warehouse in Willesden and River is his minder

Did nobody else want to kill them all every time they said "spoilers" (nudge nudge wink wink aren't we so clever)?

raises hand

Yeah that was a bit de trop.

The Stolen Earth and daleks confirmed by the official press release for ep12.

Of course, those of us who saw A Certain Picture during the week might suggest it doesn't stop there.

Rusty wants to do his Big Last Important Thing

oh god

This story was so good and that will be so bad.

Now I know he's going, I kind of want Rusty to go overboard and just make it as overblown as possible.

I'm sure I've heard of planets being dragged across the galaxy and hidden in Doctor Who before, can't remember where though.

The Pirate Planet

And The Mysterious Planet (the first chunk of Trial Of A Timelord). I haven't watched the rest yet, so I still don't know why earth was 2 light years away from where it should've been. And I've got a feeling it might not even get explained.

and of course in the first two episodes of this series

uh waht

How did I miss the planet abduction bits of "Partners in Crime" and "The Fires of Pompeii"?

It's been the running theme through the entire series.

The Adipose lost their planet, the Pyrovilles lost heirs, the Sontarans wanted to transform Earth, the people who had travelled in the Doctor's Daughter lost theirs, the Vespiform lost the planet it came from, the Library was lost to the shadow things... it's Rusty's Big Thing this year. Also, missing bees have been in all (?) the episodes this series.

And of course the shadow things had their forests destroyed to make the books.

xp OH WOW OF COURSE