Doctor Who

[Heradel]

As the new season starts today (was aired around 2 EST) I guess it's as good a time as any to start a topic about it. As an American, legally I have to wait for Scifi to start running them before I can see them. Legally. In reality... well, there are programs, programs with blue frogs and orange traffic cones as icons, programs that had the episode out on the pirate-infested internet 30 minutes post-screening on the BBC.

Anyway, thoughts?

[Alasdair5000]

   Orders of magnitude more confident and assured than the opening of season two.  It's weird, but I get the vague feeling that new Doctors always wobble a bit, certainly in script quality, for the first season or so before settlingg down.  With that in mind, this may be the first season we get of 10 at full strength and if that's the case...WOW.  Various thoughts:

-Considering Freema Agyeman was less than great in her first appearance as another character back in Army of Ghosts, she knocks this right out of the park.  Martha's smart, slightly put upon, uttterly no nonsense and a great foil for 10.  The banter between them lacks the smugness of the second series with Rose and kept the story driving along.  Good job.
-Motorcycle couriers in full gear are the best idea for a really cheap alien, EVER.  Nice concept too.
-The darker tone of that last trailer?  Here in spades.  Lots of portentous dialogue (The Plasmavore's lines about 'laughing in the darkness' and 'terrible deeds to come' spring to mind) and I get the sneaking suspicion that the Plasmavore's escape attempt may plug into a bigger picture. 
-David Tennant looks like he's settled in.  The 'Ohhhh!  SPACE!' over the top jollity of last season is replaced here with something quieter and a lot darker.  Loved the 'and AGAIN' during the second chase sequence and 'Crossing into established events is strictly forbidden...except for cheap tricks.' is this Doctor in a nutshell.  Great stuff:)
-SPACE RHINOS!  The Judoon were GREAT, especially their big stompy, brutalist spaceships.  More of them please.

   The not quite so good:

-I'm familiar with the actress playing the Plasmavore's previous work, she's really good and has great comic timing BUT, an old lady with a straw does not a frightening villain make.
-Martha's family.  Unlike a lot of people I really liked the Jackie Tyler stuff with Rose and there's some promise here too, especially with her brother and sister.  However, the final scene with them descended into panto.  It needed to for the story but it didn't sit right for me.

   Overall though, top notch:)  I'd like the next one now please.

[Simon Painter]

I agree, season 3 does seem to be shaping up much nicer doesn't it?  Season two was certainly more than a little bit patchy (spaceships powered by love?) .

Freema Agyeman was great, I never much liked Rose, or the way she was constantly being hurled in our faces as the über-companion, hopefully they'll be able to settle down a bit more and just tell us a story with people that're just people.

The Judoon were particularly awesome, I love the way they kept the budget down by only having on of them ever remove his helmet    The scene where leader offers Martha compensation was priceless.  I also loved the Doctor miming along to the 'it's bigger on the inside...' line that everyone ends up giving, there must be several hundred instances of that line throughout the series.

On the downside, as is often the case with Russel T Davies scripts, when it comes to humour he's got the self control of a demented magpie.  It undermines the villain to have her kill in a silly manner (I mean, is the straw rasor-edged or something?)  and the scene where the Doctor decontaminates himself is way too long.  If they wanted to establish how alien he was, it'd've been enough just to have him survive the radiation bath (come to think of it, wasn't the strength they used enough to liquidise flesh, let alone kill?) but on top of that you get the silly scene of him shoving it all in his shoe, it ruins the pace of the episode.

The scene with Martha resusitating the Doctor didn't quite gell with me either, doesn't this mean that 1) The Doctor's survival is now purely due to the fact that he'd just teamed up with a Medical Student, had he been with Rose, he'd have been done 2) He'd died of blood loss, wouldn't a transfusion be the thing to bring him back? and 3) shouldn't he have been dead long enough to endure permanant brain damage?

I can excuse 3) due to alien physiology, but even so...

Still, a bit of scene trimming aside, it was a damned fun episode 

Simon Painter
Shropshire, UK

[Brian Reilly]

I agree, season 3 does seem to be shaping up much nicer doesn't it?  Season two was certainly more than a little bit


On the downside, as is often the case with Russel T Davies scripts, when it comes to humour he's got the self control of a demented magpie.  It undermines the villain to have her kill in a silly manner (I mean, is the straw rasor-edged or something?)  and the scene where the Doctor decontaminates himself is way too long.  If they wanted to establish how alien he was, it'd've been enough just to have him survive the radiation bath (come to think of it, wasn't the strength they used enough to liquidise flesh, let alone kill?) but on top of that you get the silly scene of him shoving it all in his shoe, it ruins the pace of the episode.

Strangely, I thought the straw part was OK, but the shoe was ridiculous. The straw felt like the kind of quirky humour you'd expect from Doctor Who, and can be rationalised as a sophisticated alien blood-extraction device disguised as a straw.

But the whole thing with the radiation and the shoe just made me think "WTF?"

Still, overall a good episode, and a great start to season three.

[Simon Painter]

Still, overall a good episode, and a great start to season three.

Aboulutely, I've got high hopes for season 3. 

My only problem is that the scripts written by Russel T Davies himself (which are thankfully becoming less frequent now) tend to be a) too silly and b) far too underdeveloped, he doesn't seem to think everything through properly but puts it on anyway, in the hope that noone'll notice. 

In contrast the episodes written by other writers (The Empty Child, Dalek, The Girl in the Fireplace, etc) rank among some of my favorite examples of TV ever!

Simon Painter
Shropshire, UK

[Heradel]

Davies does seem to suffer burnout, but considering how much he's writing I can forgive him for it (a few shy of 26 between The Doctor and Torchwood).

My guess is that the shoe bit is some sort of set-up for a latter episode. At least, that's the only justification for the length of the piece. Well, that and showing he's alien to the real companion (my real problem with that scene is that he threw it into a medical waste bin, which I doubt is lined with lead).

[Simon Painter]

sadly, I doubt it's a set-up for anything, I think it was just thrown in for sheer sillyness value.

As for the bin, if we're on the subject of being realistic, I'd also like to know what's powering the hostpital, and where the gravity is coming from 

[Heradel]

Same place as the music.

They lifted the hospital and then transported it near-instantaneously thousand of miles across the void. I think they can manage amplifying the moon's.

So Shakespeare episode. I liked it, but I keep getting hung up on the:
"Though you are a royal beauty"-Shakespeare
"Whoa nilly, I know for a fact you've got a wife in the country"-Martha
"But Martha, this is town."-Shakespeare
"Come on, we can all the good flirt later."-Doctor
"Is that a promise Doctor"-Shakespeare
"Oh, Fifty Seven academics just punched the air"-Doctor
:Bit. It feels like a reference, but I can't place it.

That said, all for positing that the real reason the lost play is lost is because of a bunch of very olde alien witches.

[Alasdair5000]

  Near as I can tell, that's just a reference to the longstanding belief in some circles that Shakespeare was bisexual.  Also one of the best bits of the episode:)

   I...didn't think too much of that, if I'm honest.  Dean Lennox Kelly was magnificent as Shakespeare but aside from that it felt...rushed.  And cheap.  The make up on the witches was unforgivably poor as was the puppet=y thing the actors summon during the rehearsal (And, I'm sorry, but surely when a bizarre spectre of possible evil is summoned by what you're saying, you maybe go have a word with the writer and tell him you're a bit worried?).  It just seemed like an hour's episode crammed into forty five minutes with too many ideas and none of them being given room to breathe (Which is a shame because words as a basis of science is a great concept:)).  Plus, the constant dropping into and out of near verse from the minor characters didn't help.
   It was okay, and a lot of the lit gags were tons of fun (The explanation for Shakespeare's ruff and JK Rowling saving the day being my favourites:)) but it just seemed like a gear down after last week.  Still, we have the Face of Boe next and that should be fun:)

[Heradel]

  Near as I can tell, that's just a reference to the longstanding belief in some circles that Shakespeare was bisexual.  Also one of the best bits of the episode:)

Ah, that makes sense. I hadn't come across that theory, but it doesn't surprise me that I hadn't.

It does feel like a mistake to try to squeeze Shakespeare into one episode. But from the podcast commentary about the Christmas Episode they apparently already have a few two-parters, so perhaps there was something longer in the planning stages but then got cut when it came time to break the season?

[SFEley]

  Near as I can tell, that's just a reference to the longstanding belief in some circles that Shakespeare was bisexual.  Also one of the best bits of the episode:)

Ah, that makes sense. I hadn't come across that theory, but it doesn't surprise me that I hadn't.

The major support for this theory is his sonnets, many of which appear to be addressed to a young man.  Of course, no one knows to what extent any of his sonnets are based on anything in Shakespeare's actual life, so it's all just guesswork on everyone's part.  Personally I think it would be pretty cool if Shakespeare was bisexual, but I think that about most people.  >8->


(By the way, I'm trying my best not to read this thread...  That line just happened to stand out to me as I clicked through to mark this thread "read."  I haven't seen any of this season's Doctor Who episodes yet, and may not for a couple of weeks, as we're planning to revive the Single Malt Who evenings with our friends.)

[Heradel]

So the Face of Bo/New^14 New York episode. Includes one hell of a traffic jam, mood-Drugs, A commentary on Smog, the Death of Bo, and a mysterious reference to the Doctor Not Being Alone. Regular old-old New York episode to follow.

It kind of feels like they're throwing up a lot of floating plot points that they'll have to pay off in the finale.

Edit: Oh, and after listening to the podcast one of my somewhat embarrassing writing habits has been vindicated by Mr. Davies. Namely if I'm listening to music while writing, having to repeat the same song a billion times to keep in the save voice while writing.

[Alasdair5000]

So the Face of Bo/New^14 New York episode. Includes one hell of a traffic jam, mood-Drugs, A commentary on Smog, the Death of Bo, and a mysterious reference to the Doctor Not Being Alone. Regular old-old New York episode to follow.

It kind of feels like they're throwing up a lot of floating plot points that they'll have to pay off in the finale.

Edit: Oh, and after listening to the podcast one of my somewhat embarrassing writing habits has been vindicated by Mr. Davies. Namely if I'm listening to music while writing, having to repeat the same song a billion times to keep in the save voice while writing.

   Yeah, there's a lot of speculation on some boards (In between spitting blood over either A)The fact that the daleks are back or B)They've actually dared to do something new with them.  Which, to me, seems quite a lot like asking for choc mint chip ice cream and then demanding to know why it's green and what the little brown bits are, but there you go) about the fact that certain things seem to be turning up each episode, namely:

-The Doctor has a past relationship with a character in the episode that he's not initially aware of (Meeting Martha before meeting Martha, Queenie wanting him dead for reasons not yet explained, the Face of Boe referring to him as 'old friend' and seeming to know a lot more about him than he should)

-The Doctor's getting stuff wrong, more so than ever before.  He dies in the first episode, is only saved in the second by having two hearts and puts Martha's life in mortal danger as a direct result of refusing to tell her the truth.  There was a lot of criticism of Tennant's doctor in the second series for being lighter and fluffier than Eccleston's but this season?  As dark as Eccleston, definitely.

[Heradel]

The loss of Rose definitely pushed the Doctor into a more secretive mode. I'm guessing (as the first season did this too) that we end up with a lot of floating bits that get tied together in the last couple of episodes (which, from the foreshadowing present, will probably be on Gallifrey).

Oh, also my favorite new image from Doctor Who is the Black Cat and the Vestigial Virgins.

[RichGarner]

I just started getting into this series recently. I got season one on Netflix and I'm starting to look over the original series on the Netflix "Watch Now" feature.

What exactaly is a Time Lord? Is he just an alien that lives a long time? Does he have unique abilities that do not come up in the show often? I'm just a little confused why all the aliens look like saturday morning, ghostbuster-type monsters and this one alien looks human.

[Alasdair5000]

   Think I've got this right:

-The Time Lords were one of the oldest races in the universe whose society was transformed by the work of three individuals;  Rassilon, Omega and The Other.  Rassilon was a legendary philosopher, Omega the scientist who perfected the Black Hole technology that would ultimately power the Time Lords' society and The Other was a unique figure, a scientist and artist who was at least the intellectual equal of the other two.  There have been clear implications at several points in the show's history (And interestingly at least one flat denial) that the Doctor is a reincarnation of The Other.  For example, a line of dialogue cut from Curse of Fenric (One of the best later stories and well worth checking out, if nothing else for the moment where communism defeats vampires:)) has the villain become terrified of the Doctor, saying 'You're more than just a Time Lord aren't you?'

-With the black hole technology in place (And Omega apparently killed in its creation) the Time Lords were free to begin their exploration of time.  To do this they created the TARDISes (Time and Relative Dimensions In Space), a semi-sentient type of dimensionally transcendant spacecraft able to hold vast spaces within an externally small shell.  TARDIS development continues throughout Time Lord history and the Doctor's TARDIS (Which contains amongst other things, a library, a colossal wardrobe room, several bedrooms, an auxilliary control room and a large stretch of Wimbledon Common) despite being a Type 40 was considered an old and outdated model as far back as the series' debut. 

-The Time Lords soon discovered the potential dangers of their technology, as it presented an almost irrestible lure to other races.  To this end, TARDISes were fitted with Chameleon circuits, a camouflage system designed to blend the TARDIS in with it's surroundings.  The Doctor's TARDIS, it should be noted, has been stuck as a Police Box for the entire run of the series.  It has been clearly implied, on several occasions, that it likes the shape.

-The Time Lords are also unusually long-lived, each one capable of regenerating from fatal damage 12 times.  In each case, the new personality retains all the memories of the old and seems driven to define themselves as quickly as possible against their successors.  The regeneration can be triggered by simple old age (The first incarnation of the Doctor we see, who may not be the first incarnation of the Doctor but that's a whole different can of worms, dies of old age), fatal physical damage or can be self induced.  Several of the novels implied that the Sixth Doctor, realising that he was ill prepared to face the threats that he sensed were coming, forcibly regenerated into the Seventh. 
   
I think that about covers it.  If you can track it down, I can't recommend A History by Lance Parkin highly enough.  It's a huge book collating the complete fictional history of the series, from the early days of the Time Lords through to the end of time, incorporating every book, audio CD, TV episode and comic strip.  It's currently out of print but the last edition covers up to the end of the first season of the new show at least.

[RichGarner]

Way cool. Thanks.

I just finished the sixth episode "Dalek" and that explained a lot. I had always seem these things in magazines and websites and I always thought they looked goofy. But it really works once you learn why they are the way they are. Great episode.

[oddpod]

speculation on anther time lord?

as a long time fan of the docktor i am desperately hoping we  are going to see "the master" return.
for those who don't know the master is anther renegade time lord and all round badass. he makes the darleks and ciber men look like a bunch of fluffy Bunny's , working true  manipulation rather than military conquest. he is the only Dr who bad guy who can go toe-to-toe with the doctor on his owen ground.

[Nelka]

*** Spoiler ***



It has been confirmed that John Simms will be playing the Master.  I believe he will be introduced to us as the professor. 

So far this season hasn't been spectacular but I'm patient.  There is going to be a period of transition with Martha as the new companion.  Personally, I am not a fan of the fact that she's going to have an unrequited love for him.  I wouldn't mind so much if they had slowly built up to that, but she's known him for a week and already wants to have his Time Lord baby.

I appreciate that Doctor Who has a sense of humor.  When they do serious and dramatic, they do it very well.  But Doctor Who has always had an aspect of quirkiness.  The silliness works for me and it works for the show.  When special effects and money are limited it's always nice to poke fun of yourself.

[oddpod]

fab!

[Heradel]

It has been confirmed that John Simms will be playing the Master.  I believe he will be introduced to us as the professor. 

So far this season hasn't been spectacular but I'm patient.  There is going to be a period of transition with Martha as the new companion.  Personally, I am not a fan of the fact that she's going to have an unrequited love for him.  I wouldn't mind so much if they had slowly built up to that, but she's known him for a week and already wants to have his Time Lord baby.

In the future some sort of spoiler alert is pretty nice.

I think she more has a crush on him, not the full on love. And, well, it's not a normal situation. They're seeing each other around the clock, he's saved her, the hospital, the world, New New York, the world, the world. And he's introduced her to Shakespeare.

Kinda a pretty hard guy to for us mere mortals to match. So I'd find it weirder if the crush wasn't getting bigger.

[Roney]

In case anyone living in sunnier climes is wondering why the internet hasn't provided a new episode for *cough*download*cough* this week, it's because Dr Who was pre-empted by the Eurovision Song Contest.  Eurovision was probably scarier, though.

[oddpod]

its just sooooo wrong in a civilised society to have an evil like Eurovision

so what old Dr who carictors/villains do you think we are going to see in the new one sooner or later ?

i quiat fancy seeing the sea demons or davros back, thow its getting a bit daft with the obligatory Resurrection of the darleks all the time

[Nelka]

It has been confirmed that John Simms will be playing the Master.  I believe he will be introduced to us as the professor. 

So far this season hasn't been spectacular but I'm patient.  There is going to be a period of transition with Martha as the new companion.  Personally, I am not a fan of the fact that she's going to have an unrequited love for him.  I wouldn't mind so much if they had slowly built up to that, but she's known him for a week and already wants to have his Time Lord baby.

In the future some sort of spoiler alert is pretty nice.

I think she more has a crush on him, not the full on love. And, well, it's not a normal situation. They're seeing each other around the clock, he's saved her, the hospital, the world, New New York, the world, the world. And he's introduced her to Shakespeare.

Kinda a pretty hard guy to for us mere mortals to match. So I'd find it weirder if the crush wasn't getting bigger.

Sorry.  The information had been released to the general public, so I did not stop to consider the usual spoiler alert.  Of course, in the future you might not want to quote such information so that one can edit their post. (There is always a chance that they might be misleading the audience on purpose. )

I keep forgetting that not everyone who watches Doctor Who listens to Podshock or reads any of the Dr.Who magazines.  Russell T Davies has referenced Martha Jones as having an "unrequited love" for the doctor.

I can understand the rush and excitment causing a crush.  But my opinion, and it is only an opinion, is that it's a little too much too soon.

[Heradel]

I hate Slashdot/The Sun. They reported that it'll be canceled post series-four. In reality, it's just a rumor that Davies will quit due to exhaustion from running the Doctor and Torchwood after the fourth season(16 hour days 3/4ths of the year).