Doctor Who

Classic series, new series, 'tis all welcome here.

I just finished series three. I have just four words: [spoiler=Doctor Who Series Three: The Last of The Time Lords:c7c1c]CrowningMomentOfAwesome...for all of humanity. I absolutely loved the ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve moment! I absolutely loved that the power that defeated The Master wasn't some stupid magic gun but hope and belief and the triumph of the human spirit! I absolutely loved that words and belief were, in the end, more powerful than all the weapons The Master had created. Hope prevails and Toclaphane be darned, humanity is stinking awesome! YES!]] Ahem, anyway. Guess that shows what side of SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism I fall on.

"The Unicorn and The Wasp"

A good, but not brilliant episode. Seemed a retread of stuff. The Doctor ChangedHisJumper again

Man, every so often, Doctor Who makes me think "How can something on television be this good!?"

Oh, and ditto everything Ruthie said.

Productivity is for people without internet connections. -Count Dorku

Haven wrote:

I used to absolutely adore this show. Back when I first started watching in 2005, it was just so refreshing, I thought it was the best thing on television. Ever.

Now I still watch every episode, and it remains my favourite TV show by default (the only other TV series I'm following at the moment is Heroes season 2) but it feels like something's missing. The plots are getting somewhat samey and every episode ends with a deus ex machina. So, while I've always thought I fell on the idealism side of the scale, the end of "The Last of the Timelords" really didn't work for me. If they'd foreshadowed it a bit more, and not tried to cram into one episode a story that most shows would have spent a whole arc on, then it would have been awesome.

This current series has been up and down (didn't like "Planet of the Ood" much, "The Doctor's Daughter" was fun but cheesy) but I thought "The Unicorn and the Wasp" was excellent. My faith has been restored.

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45 years this year and still massively popular.

That says something.

And that's surviving a long hiatus.

I'm actually only a fan of the Tom Baker years, particularly. When I was a kid (this is in the States mind you) the Fourth Doctor was always on public television.

I prefer the old series to the new but that's probably because I'm just taking the best serials and comparing them to the not-so-great episodes of the new series. Like The Sontaran Stratagem. Did anyone else think that plot made no sense whatsoever?

Anyway, Russell T Davies will apparently be stepping down as executive producer ((linky)), as soon as next year's specials are done. Personally, I didn't think he wrote the best episodes, but he did bring the series back to life with a bang, so credit where credit's due. That said, his replacement is Steven Moffat (writer of "Girl in the Fireplace", "The Empty Child" and "Blink", along with next week's episode with the library) so that can only be a good thing.

"It's in a better place, Strong Bad. Or rather, it's in the same place, but now it's got a big hole through it."

Withad wrote:

I haven't really seen anything like enough of the old series to judge, but I think I prefer the style of the revived series. That said, the best stories are usually the ones where they take the time to actually tell the story, rather than cramming it into a single episode.

"The Sontaran Strategem" wasn't hard to follow, but the burning atmosphere scene stretched my suspension of disbelief to near-breaking point. Apart from that I thought it was an OK two-parter.

Unlike many fans, who seem to see RTD as one of those people you either love or hate, I have mixed feelings about his scripts. The episodes he wrote in series one stood out as some of the best, as did "Tooth and Claw", "Doomsday", "Smith and Jones", "Gridlock" and "The Sound of Drums". On the other hand, he's also been responsible for some of the weaker episodes, such as "Love & Monsters" and "The Last of the Time Lords".

I agree about Steven Moffat, when I heard one of the other writers would be taking over I hoped it would be him. He's written four of my absolute favourite episodes.

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Do you know what I think the next companion should be?

A Wrench Wench Meganekko.

When I grow up, I want to be a Dalek.

Charlatan wrote:

One of my avatars on a bunch of other fora is a POV-Ray image of a Dalek. (Sec, specifically)

SHIKI is dead.

It's the calm before... The Oncoming Storm.

Expect the Doctor Who forums to go mad tonight.

Is Other Ten dead? I ask because Actual Doctor said that human-timelords can't exist and had to wipe Donna's memory to stop her from dying. Since there was no one to wipe Other Ten's memory can it be assumed that he died shortly after the TARDIS left the parallel Earth.

Tealove is best pony.Pony Fanon Index

Badwolfwho wrote:

I doubt we're supposed to think that. The other Doctor was created from a Time Lord, rather than the other way around, so he should be able to handle a little human DNA. In any case, the way the Doctor talked about it, he made it sound as though the other Doctor and Rose would grow old together as a couple. Lying about something like that would be evil.

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Marathoning the fourth season now...just watched "The Doctor's Daughter" and I squeed at the last scene. She lived! Jenny in jene- err, general was just awesome and incredibly happy, I wish they'd gotten to take her along... but her going off and having adventures of her own somewhere in time and space is excellent too.

I don't really like Donna, she seems to have way too much of a sense of entitlement going on, but she has a few decent moments and I can manage to tune her out the rest of the time. :p

Bobby G wrote:

Yeah, that part didn't make much sense in terms of science, but I was fine with it on its literary merits (that is, as a repeat of the whole the Doctor causing an inferno motif).

Productivity is for people without internet connections. -Count Dorku

Haven wrote:

Yep, I was glad about that too.

One question. If Steven Moffat is "The Grand Moff", does that make Georgia Moffett "The Sexy Moff"?

(Georgia Moffet will get an entry once I get an air date for [ww]Spooks: Code 9[/ww], which she is in)

Just watched the finale.

AFOILKAFM that was GLORIOUS.

I really have nothing else to say, because that was just...too...impossibly...awesome.

My favorite aspect of all this was how the Doctor has his own nakama. That is wonderful. And...dude..awesomeness overload.... yeah.

Productivity is for people without internet connections. -Count Dorku

Haven wrote:

You pretty much summed up how I felt after seeing it.

Whatever people think of him, Russell T. Davies finished on a high point. You have to give him that.

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Bobby G wrote:

Indeed, indeed. Bringing together just about every single element he'd used...so awesome, and I love the fact that doing so gave the doctor his own little nakama XD That was the most touching part of it to me.

(also, "AFOILKAFM" is not a new fangled internet acronym, that is more me bashing the keyboard randomly to express my enthusiasm.)

edited 14th Mar '09 1:49:13 PM by Haven

Productivity is for people without internet connections. -Count Dorku

I quite liked the idea behind bringing together the whole nakama but I thought that it meant there were sometimes too many characters and subplots for one story. Stuff like UNIT's teleport vest doohickey and the appearance of the Shadow Proclamation felt like they could have been given more time or even episodes of their own. Still, I suppose there's nothing stopping them from reappearing in more detail in later episodes, and it wasn't a huge problem.

The ending bugged me a bit, though. It's good to have Mickey back in the normal universe but Rose's departure just felt like the same as before but with a slightly squicky romance added in. The only character who seemed to get a proper conclusion was Donna's grandfather. But maybe that's just me being cynical.

"It's in a better place, Strong Bad. Or rather, it's in the same place, but now it's got a big hole through it."

Bobby G wrote:

He's not done yet. There's still four specials to go.

This should have been better promoted, but spreading the word.

The ''Doctor Who'' Prom. Includes a special scene at the beginning of Part 2. Available for UK users only, BTW.

Do you know what I would really, really like?

Joss Whedon to write a Doctor Who episode. That would be made of win and good.

I just watched it again, and I have to say...the moment where they're all guiding the Earth back in the TARDIS...while that music plays...that still just brings a tear to my eye. That music makes it so much like Christmas...I love it, it's insane.

The Face of Boe was right.

And it's amazing that that scene falls right after the clone doctor kills all the Daleks, which is just this impossible tragedy to me - the Doctor sacrificed his people, his home, his life, and his morals to end the war, and what does he get for it? Eternal loneliness, and his enemies keep coming back. He's trapped into committing genocide over and over again, forced to relive that moment time and again, always just barely removed. We can't even begin to imagine that (which is why the Family of Blood thought being immortal was a good thing)...

Productivity is for people without internet connections. -Count Dorku

Every time I see an episode or multi-episode story that makes me think, "Okay, that's as good as it gets," they top themselves. (Series 4 finale topped Series 3 Finale topped Series 2 Finale topped Series 1 Finale topped The Doctor Dances.)It's like an unending chain of Crowning Moment Of Awesome after Crowning Moment Of Awesome!