# 3 weeks till new Who!



## Morrus (Mar 9, 2013)

Despite it only being 8 eps this year (better than the 5 last year, I guess) I can't wait!


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## Janx (Mar 9, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Despite it only being 8 eps this year (better than the 5 last year, I guess) I can't wait!




is that 3 weeks until BBC gets it, or until BBC America shows it to the rest of us?


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## Morrus (Mar 9, 2013)

Janx said:


> is that 3 weeks until BBC gets it, or until BBC America shows it to the rest of us?




It's on Easter Saturday on BBC1.  I haven't the faintest knowledge of BBC America!


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## Roland55 (Mar 9, 2013)

Ah, Dr. Who.

Always enjoyed that.

Being an American, I first noticed it about the time Pertwee was the Doctor.  So, I naturally have a bent toward Pertwee and his successor, the impish and unpredictable Tom Baker.  

I must admit the last two, Tennant and Smith, are extremely fine.  Haven't seen all their episodes -- but have enjoyed the few I've caught.

Hoping the Doctor never fades away.


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## Janx (Mar 10, 2013)

Morrus said:


> It's on Easter Saturday on BBC1.  I haven't the faintest knowledge of BBC America!




BBC America is how agents of the BBC smuggle bootleg product to the colonies long after the "Sell By" date has been reached.

Without it, we have to wait until the SyFy channel manages to snag a copy by recording a re-run from last year on VHS and then hiding it in a shipment of Sweatin to the Oldies.

In short, we Americans, who didn't pay any taxes that fund the BBC have to wait much longer to see a subset of your TV shows on Cable TV.

It's a bummer.


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## Rabulias (Mar 10, 2013)

Janx said:


> It's a bummer.




I'm pretty sure it's playing on BBC America on Saturday, March 30, as well, so no bummer!


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## sabrinathecat (Mar 10, 2013)

VHS? Are you still living in the 80s and 90s?
the old show was great. The new show started of OK, became great, then the producer burned out, and turned it over to Moffat, who wrote 6 of the best stories of the first 4 years. Moffat ruined it. Would love to have someone take over from him. Short season already? Good. If Moffat has burned out, maybe someone will take over who will remember what the fan-base is.


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## Janx (Mar 11, 2013)

Rabulias said:


> I'm pretty sure it's playing on BBC America on Saturday, March 30, as well, so no bummer!




excellent news then.

 [MENTION=89838]sabrinathecat[/MENTION], they say that if you have to explain the joke, then it wasn't that funny.  I certainly wasn't serious when I explained the process by which SyFy brings us the not-so latest in Who by means of an antiquated process.  I would have thought the Richard Simmons reference would have cleared that up...


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## TheTraveler (Mar 11, 2013)

That's fantastic news - I know that I'm certainly looking forward to more!


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## Morrus (Mar 11, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> the old show was great. The new show started of OK, became great, then the producer burned out, and turned it over to Moffat, who wrote 6 of the best stories of the first 4 years. Moffat ruined it. Would love to have someone take over from him. Short season already? Good. If Moffat has burned out, maybe someone will take over who will remember what the fan-base is.




_I'm_ the fan base.  A British kid who grew up with the show, who fondly remembers it, and now enjoys the new series immensely.  Let's not make that mistake of assuming everyone is you or that your opinion is in some way universal.


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## Herschel (Mar 11, 2013)

Rabulias said:


> I'm pretty sure it's playing on BBC America on Saturday, March 30, as well, so no bummer!




But BBC America does have artificially inserted commercial breaks, so semi-bummer. I'm excited for the return but somewhat irked there's a three-week gap between Ripper Street and it. BBC America may be the only reason I keep paying for otherwise already commercial television.


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## sabrinathecat (Mar 11, 2013)

Moffat has repeatedly said that he is targetting the show toward 6-8 year old kids(where have he heard that before?), which is about the only explanation for the sudden drop in writing quality. Series 5 was so bad that even after 30 years of watching Who I was prepared to give up on the new show entirely. I gave series 6 a try strictly out of curiosity, and it was mildly better, but still very unfocussed.


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## Umbran (Mar 11, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> Moffat has repeatedly said that he is targetting the show toward 6-8 year old kids(where have he heard that before?)




I think that's a misquote.  In an interview* back in 1995, discussing the Virgin "New Adventures" Dr. Who books, he said:

"_*Steven:* But that's not what you want. My memories of Doctor Who are based on bad television that I enjoyed at the time. It could get me really burned saying this, but Doctor Who is actually aimed at 11-year-olds. Don't overstress it, but it's true. Now what the New Adventures have done, sometimes successfully, is to try and reinterpret that for adults, which has involved a completely radical revision of the Seventh Doctor that never appeared on television. That is brilliant._"

I don't think that really speaks to which audience he's currently targeting.




* http://nzdwfc.tetrap.com/archive/tsv43/onediscussion.html


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## sabrinathecat (Mar 11, 2013)

So how did we go from the author who brought us "The Empty Child", "Blink", the story in the Library, to, well, series 5?


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## Morrus (Mar 11, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> So how did we go from the author who brought us "The Empty Child", "Blink", the story in the Library, to, well, series 5?




Repeating "I didn't like series 5" in different words doesn't make your position any more universally true than it did the first time.

I like the current series just fine. So do 6-8 million other people in the UK, apparently. The recent Xmas special, in particular, was excellent.

Could we stop pretending our personal tastes are anything more than that?


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## Morrus (Mar 11, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> Moffat has repeatedly said that he is targetting the show toward 6-8 year old kids.




Has he, now? And not just once, but repeatedly?  I don't think he has, has he?


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## JustinAlexander (Mar 11, 2013)

Misquote or not, sabrinathecat is right: The show was getting truly dire during RTD's last years, but after an initial uptick at the top of Moffat's run the writing quality on the show has dropped precipitously again. "Sloppy" and "unfocused" are perhaps the kindest words that could be applied to it; phrases like "incoherent in its schizophrenia" and "mind-numbingly repetitive" would be more accurate. The presence of two scripts by Mark ("The Idiot Lantern") Gatiss in the  second half of this season doesn't lead me to expect any particular  improvement in the near future, either.

One of the major problem is that the show has reached a point where the constant repetition of what appears to be a limited pool  of ideas begins to degrade the quality of previous material.

For example, I enjoyed "The Pandorica Opens"/"The Big Bang" as a  conclusion to Season 5: Misguided assassination attempt on the Doctor  results in the creation of a broken pocket universe and the Doctor is  forced to sacrifice himself in order to reboot the universe, but it  turns out he's able to prep a loophole and come back. I thought the  method and motive of assassination was clever and well established by  the meta-arc of the season; I thought the rules of the pocket universe  were clear and interesting; I thought the loophole was played fairly and  was also joyfully clever in its execution.

But then we fast forward a season and we find "The Wedding of River  Song": A misguided assassination attempt on the Doctor results in the  creation of a broken pocket universe and the Doctor is forced to  sacrifice himself in order to reboot the universe, but it turns out he's  able to prep a loophole and come back.

Only this time there is no motive presented for the assassination  attempt; the method makes no sense; the pocket universe is a lot of  sound and fury without clear or coherent rules to its existence; and the  loophole is puerile.

We saw this same "deja vu decay" in RTD's run: A dalek accusing the  Doctor of being a good dalek in "Dalek" was astonishingly brilliant  storytelling that evoked what had happened to the Doctor and how it had  changed him. The third or fourth time we came back to the exact same  moment with Davros accusing the Doctor of the same thing (only this time  in a context for which it made no sense in the middle of a plan to  destroy the universe which also made no sense) it had lost all its  impact.

It's actually been impressive how much the sheer charisma and talent of  the actors has been making up for some truly atrocious scripts, but there's a limit to how much rope I'm willing to feed the show. The 8 episodes remaining in this season is the last opportunity I'm giving Moffat to convince me that the show is still worth spending time on.


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## Morrus (Mar 11, 2013)

JustinAlexander said:


> Misquote or not, sabrinathecat is right: The show was getting truly dire during RTD's last years, but after an initial uptick at the top of Moffat's run the writing quality on the show has dropped precipitously again. "Sloppy" and "unfocused" are perhaps the kindest words that could be applied to it; phrases like "incoherent in its schizophrenia" and "mind-numbingly repetitive" would be more accurate. .... It's actually been impressive how much the sheer charisma and talent of  the actors has been making up for some truly atrocious scripts, but there's a limit to how much rope I'm willing to feed the show. The 8 episodes remaining in this season is the last opportunity I'm giving Moffat to convince me that the show is still worth spending time on.




Dude, if you couldn't enjoy, as a few which jump to mind immediately,_ The Girl Who Waited, The Doctor's Wife, The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon, Asylum of the Daleks_, or_ The Snowme_n - indeed, if you consider them "atrocious" - I can only say that your taste _utterly, utterly, utterl_y differs to mine.  Those are _good_ writing.  There's been one or two turkeys - as there always have been (_Night Terrors_) but overall the show is doing just fine.  And the public agrees - millions of people watch this thing. _ The Snowmen_ was watched by just under_ 10 million people_.  That's 1-in-6 people.


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## Nagol (Mar 11, 2013)

What I'm finding is I'm beginning to doubt it's real -- not the literal sense, but in way _The Prisoner_ wasn't real.  I'm beginning to believe The Doctor is either screamingly insane or at least the last couple of seasons are a visualisation of his last dying hallucination as he dies in the Time War.

This theory explains the increased reliance in odd plot device, weird pocket dimensions, sonic screwdrivers that can do anything when brandished (except when they can't because -- look shiny!), and strangely portended companions.


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## Umbran (Mar 11, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> So how did we go from the author who brought us "The Empty Child", "Blink", the story in the Library, to, well, series 5?




I'm just watching Series 5 now - just watched "The Lodger" Saturday, even.  The season has been fine, solid and serviceable entertainment.  

I don't know what standard you're comparing too, honestly.  While they each had a fine points, it isn't like Eccelston and Tennant were always stellar.  It isn't like most shows, or even any shows, are *always* stellar.



			
				Nagol said:
			
		

> What I'm finding is I'm beginning to doubt it's real -- not the literal sense, but in way The Prisoner wasn't real. I'm beginning to believe The Doctor is either screamingly insane or at least the last couple of seasons are a visualisation of his last dying hallucination as he dies in the Time War.




Oh, I dunno.  Classic who had its trippy periods too.  It was the 1960s and 1970s, after all...


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## JustinAlexander (Mar 12, 2013)

Morrus said:


> The Girl Who Waited, The Doctor's Wife, The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon,




I'd agree with these three being high points from the last two seasons.



> _The Snowme_n - indeed, if you consider them "atrocious"




But, yes, I would qualify "The Snowmen" as being fairly atrocious. Here's a critique I wrote on a different forum:

From a purely structural  POV, the script was terrible. Moffat has gotten incredibly lazy as a  writer. Not only was this episode filled with telling instead of  showing, it doubled down on that dubious inadequacy by (a) simply  repeating over and over again just in case the viewer had accidentally  fallen asleep and (b) having the actual events of the episode directly  contradict the telling. 

For example, Vastra the Great Detective who is never actually seen  doing any detective work (although we're told repeatedly how awesome she is at it) is a fairly bad bit of writing. Vastra the  Great Detective who spends large parts of the episode saying, "I don't  understand!" (showing her to actually be a fairly terrible detective) is  simply incompetent writing.

(Oh, man. Reviewing a couple scenes just to make sure my memory wasn't  betraying me just keeps turning up the stupid. "Take her back where we  found her." Really? Didn't you just establish that he's lost the memory  of the last hour and has no idea who she is? Moffat needs an editor.)

Laying aside the really poor execution of the script, however, we're  forced to actually focus on the story being told: The Doctor, having  suffered a great personal loss, turns into an aloof and lonely god. But  he meets a young girl in England who reinvigorates him by being perky  and clever and helping him save the world from the Nestene  Consciousness--

Oh. Wait. Sorry. Wrong episode.

What I mean is that the Doctor, having suffered a great personal  loss, turns into an aloof and lonely god. But he meets a young girl in  England who reinvigorates him by being perky and clever and helping him  save the world from the Atraxi--

Oh. Wait. Sorry. Wrong episode.

One of the things that wore thin at the end of RTD's run was the fact  he just kept recycling the same six stories over and over and over  again. It looks as if Moffat is falling into the same trap.

  But there's also the really questionable way in which this particular  retread is being carried out. Even if we assume that clumsy elements  like "Clara randomly knows that this fellow walking down the street can  solve her currently nonexistent snowman problem" are really just hinting  at the mystery of Clara (although I've used that excuse to justify the  spottier parts of Moffat's last two seasons only to discover that there  was not, in fact, any grand design -- just lazy writing), we're still  left with the really ugly gorilla in the room:

Doctor, aren't you _married_?


If you want to tell the story of how the Doctor has pushed everyone  away from him, including River, and retired in a cloud of bitterness and  despair, there are a lot of interesting stories you could tell about  that.


But, personally, I wouldn't rank "all the Doctor really needs is a  hot piece of young girl flesh and he'll follow his erection all the way  back to social responsibility" as one of those stories.






> Asylum of the Daleks




"Asylum of the Daleks" is probably the best episode this season , but suffers from similar problems particularly when viewed in the larger context of the series as a whole.

For example, the episode immediately previous to "Asylum of the Daleks" tells the story of how the Doctor is going to go into hiding and "let the universe forget him" for awhile in response to the threat of the Silence. Why is this story immediately undermined in the very next episode, retold in miniature featuring the Daleks, and then completely forgotten about for the rest of the current season? It's just not good show management.

(And why does the entire episode look as if somebody scratched out the word "Cyberman" in the script and replaced it with the word "Dalek"?)

The biggest problem with "Asylum of the Daleks", however, is the completely sloppy storytelling surrounding the Amy-Rory relationship. (This should be self-evident, but I can go into details if you'd like.)

If I'm being honest in my assessment of the show right now, I'm forced to conclude that the current series has yet to deliver an episode that wasn't mediocre (and most of them were worse than that). And it's been 10 episodes since "The Girl Who Waited" (which is the last episode I would actually qualify as "good"). 10 episodes in a row is a lot of bad TV. It's a testament to how much I've enjoyed the show in the past that I'm giving it additional opportunities to get back on track.

Looking at the positive during the past few seasons: The most consistent stretch in Moffat's tenure as show runner has been "The Impossible Astronaut" through "Let's Kill Hitler" (in which I would only describe "The Curse of the Black Spot" as being truly bad). Series 5 was considerably less consistent (with "Victory of the Daleks", "Vampires of Venice", "The Hungry Earth", and "Cold Blood" all being dreadful), but also had some of the best episodes of Moffat's tenure (including "The Eleventh Hour").



> And the public agrees - millions of people watch this thing. _ The Snowmen_ was watched by just under_ 10 million people_.  That's 1-in-6 people.




Yes, yes. And _Transformers: Dark of the Moon_ was one of the best movies of 2011.


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## Morrus (Mar 12, 2013)

Yikes, essay.  I get that you don't like the current iteration all that much; you don't need to prove it.  A mere statement is enough. I think, based on your conclusion that "the current series has yet to deliver an episode that wasn't mediocre", I stand by my opinion that our tastes _utterly_ differ.  No essay is going to change that.

I feel that your issue is with humour and whimsy.  Madame Vastra?  Whimsy.  She's not a weak point because she doesn't do what *you* want her to do; she's a slightly whimsical nod to Holmes, with a double whimsical "she's a reptile" angle.  That's it.



> Yes, yes. And _Transformers: Dark of the Moon_ was one of the best movies of 2011.




Don't be silly.  If you're going to start comparing _Who_ to that movie, _why in god's name are you watching it?_ 



> all the Doctor really needs is a  hot  piece of young girl flesh and he'll follow his erection all the way   back to social responsibility




And that is not only ridiculous, it's also_ inappropriate on this forum_.    Please watch your tone.


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## sabrinathecat (Mar 12, 2013)

Series five started well. The first 2 stories were good, or at least serviceable. The other 11 were awful. Let's jump over horrible stories like The Lodger (the Doctor, who lived on Earth for most of 5 years, was familiar with obscure Tibetan customs, proper modern Chinese customs, and more doesn't understand basic social conventions of the early 21st century, even though he has had 4 companions from that era?) and the Spitfires in Space, and go straight to the series finale. The cybermen used to require full processing chambers, but now just a loose head can grapple onto someone to begin conversion? All the races have ships in orbit, including the revised Silurians. So, if the Silurians had space travel, why didn't some of them evacuate the planet rather than going into hibernation? Amy rubs the hair of her younger self. AMY. RUBS. THE HAIR. OF HER YOUNGER SELF. WTF? Never mind Mawndren Undead, that no-no was a major plot point in Father's Day just a couple years ago. Glossed over. In order for the universe to return, Amy has to remember it. So the Doctor cannot return until she remembers him? Um, that means the only parts of the universe that can return are the places Amy has seen. Or, if she doesn't have to remember them for them to return, than what was the big deal that River Song had to prompt her? ??? And then there's the whole crack in time, which is not resolved, and not even mentioned at all in series 6, leaving us to believe it has been abandoned entirely. Series 6, aka The River Song Show, seemed to be more about trying to make River the main character. And in the end, River doesn't marry The Doctor--She marries the robot. And how does this marriage end this phantom universe bit? That made no sense to me.  "____ is/are cool" isn't much of a personality, and neither is spitting up food.

As for story recycling--that has long been a part of Doctor Who. In fact, during Pertwee's era it was a standing joke that the plots were reduced to mad scientists and alien invasions, and The Master was behind almost every plot. To a certain extent, this is true with the Big Finish Audio stories too--"Shadow of the Scourge" has a pretty similar framework to "Winter for the Adept", and 4 other stories. If the episodes are well written and acted, it doesn't bother me much.
That NuWho has so taken to copying Big Finish wouldn't bother me as much either, if NuWho in some way did a better job with their new interpretation. But it is much like filling half a glass with root beer, and the rest with water. Yuck.
Just finished watching series 2, as it happens. There are great episodes, and weak episodes. For series 5 and 6, there are good lines and moments, and there's the rest of the show.


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## Herschel (Mar 13, 2013)

What do you expect from someone with disassociated taste? The fact that the Doctor turns lonely and withdrawn is a recurring theme gives the character/show depth. He's the dichotomy of ultimate optimist/pessimist. It hurts too see loved ones die/leave and he swears he won't face that pain again but eventually he realizes the good times are worth the bad and you have to accept both. People often say they'll never do _____ again, be it get attached to another pet, married or whatever after being hurt but often they do because they long for the companionship offered. 

The show also has different writers and fans of different offerings. I find "Midnight" to be one of the weakest of Series 4 yet many hail it as brilliant. My nephew is a staunch convert now but we like different aspects of/and different episodes best also. What the show does so well is blend entertainment for the entire family without leaving any group in the cold. It tugs at your heartstrings while still containing the whimsy to avoid becoming too dark for the younger audience.


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## Aeolius (Mar 13, 2013)

On a side note, I just read an article about Rutger Hauer joining the cast of True Blood. He looks like Jon Pertwee! link






(okay, okay... he looks like the illegitimate lovechild of Jon Pertwee and Rod Stewart)


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## Mallus (Mar 13, 2013)

Madame Vastra got to utter one of the best lines in of all contemporary science fiction: "I'm a lizard woman from the dawn of time, and this is my wife". This alone justifies her inclusion in the story, and Moffat's continued employment at the BBC. 

Moffat also titled an episode of Dr. Who, "Let's Kill Hitler", in the which the line, "You've got a time machine, I've got a gun. What the Hell, let's kill Hitler." The amount of good will the man earns from me for stuff like this is best measured using exponents.

Yes, there have been mediocre and bad episodes under his tenure. No one is perfect. Morrus is right, no one mixes science fiction and whimsy like Moffat. And I'd wager a chunk of the SF audience simply has a problem with whimsy, with the risk of implication that all this sci-fi stuff is childish, not fit for adults. God forbid someone writing sci-fi gets _playful_. This is serious business about ancient alien time travelers, angry robotic pepper-pots, and blue boxes bigger inside than out. 

edit: as to the point about Moffat repeating himself... what artist doesn't? Pointing out a writer revisits a certain set of themes/plots is hardly insightful criticism. Then again, AFAIC, most nerd criticism stays far, far away from insightful, choosing instead to dwell in the vast, shallow sea of exhaustive quotation and canon-dredging.

All I can say is I'm not tired of Moffat's shtick just yet. I can't wait until the end of the month. Even though it being with it the specter of my 44th birthday!


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## Mallus (Mar 13, 2013)

JustinAlexander said:


> For example, Vastra the Great Detective who is never actually seen  doing any detective work (although we're told repeatedly how awesome she is at it) is a fairly bad bit of writing. Vastra the  Great Detective who spends large parts of the episode saying, "I don't  understand!" (showing her to actually be a fairly terrible detective) is  simply incompetent writing.



This is because the story isn't about Vastra solving a crime -- she's basically a metafictional joke, ie Sherlock Holmes was inspired by a Silurian in a same-sex marriage, which then sort of doubles back into another metafictional joke suggesting Holmes and Watson were actually married. 

She (and her entourage) are also around to show the Doctor, no matter what, has devoted friends. Oh, and to deliver that killer line about being a lizard woman from the dawn of time.

You're misidentifying Vastra's role in the story and asking the character to do something she's clearly not intended to do. That's not bad writing on Moffat's part. Would a story centered on Vastra as the Great Detective be interesting? I think so. But's that not The Snowmen.


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## Morrus (Mar 13, 2013)

Mallus said:


> This is because the story isn't about Vastra solving a crime -- she's basically a metafictional joke, ie Sherlock Holmes was inspired by a Silurian in a same-sex marriage, which then sort of doubles back into another metafictional joke suggesting Holmes and Watson were actually married.




She's also, I'd wager, a test-bed for a replacement for The Sarah Jane Adventures now that Liz Sladen has sadly passed.  Something for CBBC in the afternoons.


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## Roland55 (Mar 14, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Dude, if you couldn't enjoy, as a few which jump to mind immediately,_ The Girl Who Waited, The Doctor's Wife, The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon, Asylum of the Daleks_, or_ The Snowme_n - indeed, if you consider them "atrocious" - I can only say that your taste _utterly, utterly, utterl_y differs to mine.  Those are _good_ writing.  There's been one or two turkeys - as there always have been (_Night Terrors_) but overall the show is doing just fine.  And the public agrees - millions of people watch this thing. _ The Snowmen_ was watched by just under_ 10 million people_.  That's 1-in-6 people.




Worry not.

There are plenty of Americans who enjoy the modern incarnation of Dr. Who.

Perhaps we just aren't as vocal.


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## Mallus (Mar 14, 2013)

Morrus said:


> She's also, I'd wager, a test-bed for a replacement for The Sarah Jane Adventures now that Liz Sladen has sadly passed.



That would be great! 



Roland55 said:


> There are plenty of Americans who enjoy the modern incarnation of Dr. Who.
> 
> Perhaps we just aren't as vocal.



A few months ago at the dentist's office, I spied an issue of Entertainment Weekly with Matt Smith as the Doctor on the cover. I think's it's safe to say the new Who is a hit in the Colonies.


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## JustinAlexander (Mar 15, 2013)

Morrus said:


> I feel that your issue is with humour and whimsy.  Madame Vastra?  Whimsy.  She's not a weak point because she doesn't do what *you* want her to do; she's a slightly whimsical nod to Holmes, with a double whimsical "she's a reptile" angle.  That's it.




I've got no problem with Madame Vastra as a character. My problem is exclusively with the incredibly poor writing of that character. Please refrain from putting words in my mouth. It's incredibly rude.



Mallus said:


> Would a story centered on Vastra as the Great  Detective be interesting? I think so. But's that not The  Snowmen.




I'm not really convinced by your argument that bad writing is OK as long as it's not the main character being badly written.


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## Mallus (Mar 15, 2013)

JustinAlexander said:


> I'm not really convinced by your argument that bad writing is OK as long as it's not the main character being badly written.



I'm not convinced by your counterargument here because, well, you haven't made one. 

I consider Madame Vastra to be a well-written character in The Snowmen because she performs her role in the story with aplomb. It's important to consider the character's _function_. If you don't do that, then you can't make a meaningful critique of the way she's written.

In order to _show_ her being the "Great Detective" you'd need to make her the protagonist (which she isn't), or include scenes establishing her as a great detective (which there isn't space for in a hour-long teleplay in which she isn't the protagonist, and which has other things on its mind). 

Put another way, _telling_ isn't universally a sign of bad writing. You have to look at it in context.

Besides, like I said earlier, Moffat gives her one of the best lines in contemporary science fiction. That should count for something!


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## Morrus (Mar 15, 2013)

JustinAlexander said:


> Please refrain from putting words in my mouth. It's incredibly rude.




I've done no such thing.  Let's drop the attitude please, eh?


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## sabrinathecat (Mar 15, 2013)

One good line per hour does not equal good writing.
I could spout utter gibberish for 5 months straight (which some people seem to think I do), and one brilliant thought. That does not make up for the rest of the 5 months.


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## Umbran (Mar 15, 2013)

Um, folks...

Consider this for a second.  

Morrus:  Hey, cool!  This thing I really like is coming up soon!
You people:  Yeah, well, that thing you really like is kinda crappy!

Folks are, of course, allowed their opinions, and are allowed to state them.  But, really, could you be just a tad less relentless in spitting on things other people like?  I mean, if you hate it that much, why are you bothering to talk about it?  Isn't there something more constructive you could do with your time?


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## Aeolius (Mar 15, 2013)

Umbran said:


> Isn't there something more constructive you could do with your time?




Time? Time?  Was that a set-up?   

Doctor Who Goodies at Think Geek


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## sabrinathecat (Mar 16, 2013)

Imagine you like something a lot.
Then imagine that there is some change that you really don't like.
Then imagine that there is a forum in which you can express yourself. Chances are this expression won't make a change to restore/undo what has upset/disappointed you, but at least you can vent.
Oh, there is a chance you might find other people who are also upset by said change/alterations or disappointed by the continuation.
This offers the chance to build a community, even if it is one based on a negativity.
Thus, construction from frustration.


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## Umbran (Mar 16, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> Then imagine that there is a forum in which you can express yourself. Chances are this expression won't make a change to restore/undo what has upset/disappointed you, but at least you can vent.




Imagine you could _create your own thread_ in that forum, in which you could vent without raining on other people's parades directly!  What a coup that would be!



> This offers the chance to build a community, even if it is one based on a negativity.




Not a fan of communities based on negativity.  At all.  That way lies nastiness.  No thanks.

Oh, and I recognize the difference between constructive criticism and negativity - they aren't at all the same thing.


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## Morrus (Mar 16, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> Imagine you like something a lot.
> Then imagine that there is some change that you really don't like.
> Then imagine that there is a forum in which you can express yourself. Chances are this expression won't make a change to restore/undo what has upset/disappointed you, but at least you can vent.
> Oh, there is a chance you might find other people who are also upset by said change/alterations or disappointed by the continuation.
> ...




Sabrina, if you want to start a thread about how much you dislike current Who, or Star Trek, or pies, or whatever - please feel free too.  Nobody's saying you have to like these things or that you shouldn't say so.  They're just saying that relentless threadcrapping in multiple threads of people just trying to enjoy something makes for an unpleasant environment. 

So, please, start a thread - or threads - on that subject.  I may well participate; others may, too, including some who agree with you.  And that lets some of us have our thread about the new shiny, too.


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## RangerWickett (Mar 16, 2013)

Man, I've only been watching Who for a couple years. I can't wait 'til I'm old enough to bish about how the new stuff sucks compared to Stephen Moffat and Matt Smith.


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## Morrus (Mar 16, 2013)

For those who are interested, there's an awesome new trailer up on the BBC site as of 12 minutes ago.   Some ridiculously gorgeous SFX shots in there.  Spaceships and spinning TARDISes!  

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p016dy23


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## Morrus (Mar 16, 2013)

And now it's on Youtube:

[video=youtube;SRQu3MvRySA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SRQu3MvRySA[/video]


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## Mark Hope (Mar 17, 2013)

Morrus said:


> And now it's on Youtube:
> 
> [video=youtube;SRQu3MvRySA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SRQu3MvRySA[/video]




Ice warriors? And was that a draconian I saw as well? Er, awesome!

Like the new Cybermen as well.  Very sleek.


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## lin_fusan (Mar 18, 2013)

Steven Moffat's strengths lie in a really strong ability to experiment and play with time as a storytelling device. Girl in the Fireplace, Silence in the Library two parter, Christmas Carol are some strong examples.

He also has an incredible ability to tap into the human psyche to invent some astounding villains; the Weeping Angels, the Silence aliens (not the Silence religious movement), the Clockwork Androids, etc. 

And the man has great structural, comedy, and thematic sense, as a well as a Joss Whedon sense of deconstructualism.

But...

I don't know if those strengths are good for a Producer of a "long form" series (long form as in 13 episodes vs 6 episodes like in Coupling or 3 episodes like in Sherlock).

He has a strong concept but it ends up stretching it way too thin over a series. 

Moffat should write the first episode and the last episode and then hand the slots over to a stable of strong writers who can take his ideas and themes and run with it.

I had my issues with Russell T Davies as a writer but I think he was phenomenal as a Producer. 

My dream team would be Davies as Producer and Moffat as Head Writer.


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## sabrinathecat (Mar 19, 2013)

Hey, the cybermen starting to look more like the classic "Tenth planet" and "tomb of the cybermen" cybermen. Maybe we'll get the alt-earth "pete's World" cybers vs the classics.
I still think the "Earthshock" cybermen were the best of the classic series look.


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## Morrus (Mar 19, 2013)

I'm hearing rumours that the 50th anniversary special on Nov 23rd is 90 minutes long and will be shown in cinemas (at least here in the UK - no idea about overseas cinemas).


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## Morrus (Mar 20, 2013)

More videos that you can shake a stick at!

[video=youtube;zjZwei-V2RE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zjZwei-V2RE[/video]

[video=youtube;SWhtgmQM6oo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWhtgmQM6oo&feature=player_embedded[/video]

[video=youtube;fOYf1fFUSis]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOYf1fFUSis&feature=player_embedded[/video]

[video=youtube;a1pzCjPN9xs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=a1pzCjPN9xs[/video]


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## Umbran (Mar 21, 2013)

Just saw the last of Series 5.  Netflix will get me through Series 6.  I wonder how I get through 7 before the 50th...


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## Morrus (Mar 22, 2013)

Umbran said:


> Just saw the last of Series 5.  Netflix will get me through Series 6.  I wonder how I get through 7 before the 50th...




Ooh, yeah, that's a pickle. I have a feeling that's gonna have a bit of the "event TV" about it - you'll want to see it at the time, not later.

I have an idea - I just got through an entire season of DS9 in 3 days because of a gastric bug.  If you give yourself food poisoning you can waste 3 days catching up guilt-free!


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## Umbran (Mar 22, 2013)

Morrus said:


> I have an idea - I just got through an entire season of DS9 in 3 days because of a gastric bug.  If you give yourself food poisoning you can waste 3 days catching up guilt-free!




Having nursed my wife through a nasty bout of post-convention norovirus last year, I'm not really keen on going through that myself.  And finding the time is not really the issue.  November is still over half a year away, after all.

The real issue is where to get the episodes.  Netflix has season six, but doesn't have the latest series!  I may have to see if they're available from other "on demand" sources.


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## Aeolius (Mar 22, 2013)

Last Night I watched Doctor Who: The Movie (1996) featuring the 8th Doctor (PaulMcGann). To call it incredibly cheesy would be a compliment.


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## Herschel (Mar 22, 2013)

I really like McGann's Doctor but yeah, the movie was pure cheese.


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## Aeolius (Mar 22, 2013)

And the stage is set for the Twelfth Doctor?

Rumor of the day: Matt Smith sets his Doctor Who departure date


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## Morrus (Mar 22, 2013)

Aeolius said:


> And the stage is set for the Twelfth Doctor?
> 
> Rumor of the day: Matt Smith sets his Doctor Who departure date




Again. 

The Sun does this pretty much every month.  Sure, one day they'll be right, but only because they do it every month.


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## Aeolius (Mar 22, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Again.   The Sun does this pretty much every month.  Sure, one day they'll be right, but only because they do it every month.





The Sun lies.


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## Morrus (Mar 22, 2013)

Aeolius said:


> The Sun lies.




It's pretty much famous for it.  And it's probably lying this time, too!


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## Morrus (Mar 23, 2013)

We have a "prequel" (BBC, you keep using that word - I do not think it means what you think it means).

A bit twee for my tastes. 

[video=youtube;2IROtC6cAT4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2IROtC6cAT4[/video]


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## sabrinathecat (Mar 23, 2013)

The FOX 1996 TV movie was an abomination. Only McCoy and McGann made it remotely tolerable. If you believe the guy behind the project, it was meant to be a completely new series/reboot/parallel universe, but in order to get everyone to play along and back the work, he had to totally compromise his vision. In short, by compromising his integrity, the work lost whatever artistic merit it might have had. The best thing that could have been done with that production would be to treat it like the 1978 Star Wars Christmas special: ignore it. Unfortunately, the BBC liked the idea of McGann taking over, even though they never did anything with it, so he became the official 8th Doctor. On the positive side, Big Finish Productions made a large number of Audio Adventures with McGann, which worked much better.
Funny, BFP has over 170 Doctor Who stories. The original program run was only about 140.
A lot of the staff of NuWho came from BFP. If you haven't done so, check out some of the BFP stories.

One thing NF did that was kinda annoying was to get the 1/2 season backs for series 6--no christmas special (which I heard was actually good), and none of the bonus mini-sodes. And I'm guessing they'll do the same with series 7.


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## Umbran (Mar 24, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> In short, by compromising his integrity, the work lost whatever artistic merit it might have had.




That's a bit of an extreme position, in my opinion.  A goodly number of the Who stories prior to McGann's movie were as bad or worse.  



> A lot of the staff of NuWho came from BFP. If you haven't done so, check out some of the BFP stories.




Note, if you have 't checked out any of the BFP stories, you may not be aware that BFP stands for "Big Finish Productions" - http://www.bigfinish.com/hubs/v/doctor-who


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## Morrus (Mar 24, 2013)

Umbran said:


> That's a bit of an extreme position, in my opinion.  A goodly number of the Who stories prior to McGann's movie were as bad or worse.




Eh, it's sabrinathecat. Everything is an abomination that insults his intelligence.


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## sabrinathecat (Mar 24, 2013)

No, not everything.
But once again, the writers of the story do not understand the laws of time. If a crucial piece of the atomic clock is stolen and never returned, how can the clock work? The part was never returned. Lots of other bits make no sense.
Also, the medical doctor as written was totally incompetent. No medical doctor would ever just insert a probe into "mysterious anatomy". Oddly enough, Doctors are trained to avoid malpractice. Funny, huh? And a hospital that size would have 4 or 5 x-ray rooms, and at least one portable unit. The x-ray machine being broken makes no sense.
Medical Doctor accepts that the Doctor is an alien--the man she put the probe into and 'killed'. Then has to have it explained to her again, when the Doctor pulls the broken probe out from his chest. ???
The Doctor is NOT half-human. Need I actually explain that?
The Doctor is not a messiah.
The doctor is not a Frankenstein (Though BFP--yes  Big Finish Productions--did have the 8th Doctor travelling with Mary Shelly and Agatha Christie (separately I think) in different stories)
Doctor Who is not Highlander.
The Master is not a vampire.
The Eye of Harmony is not inside the Tardis.
I could keep going.

If you think I am exaggerating, check out the DVD extras. The excuse offered by the producer pretty much says exactly that. Sure, I extrapolated, but only because the Producer was proud of the 'accomplishment', and claimed he thought it could have been the new series pilot, if only it hadn't aired on the same night as the last episode of some network sitcom. (Rosanne Barr show? I don't remember. Or care).

If anyone ever wonders why Series 1 didn't start with the Doctor regenerating into 9, just see what a mess it made of this story.


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## Morrus (Mar 24, 2013)

A new trailer - this one specifically for the next episode:

[video=youtube;Q2FTWhU5TIw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Q2FTWhU5TIw[/video]


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## RangerWickett (Mar 24, 2013)

She sure does like her tea/coffee.


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## Umbran (Mar 24, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> I could keep going..




Yes, but most of your points are about violating continuity.  Consider for a moment how little the idea of "continuity" means when the main character's major ability is to change the timeline! 

And, while perhaps those things are a big deal to you, they aren't many.  They were rebooting the series for a new market and audience - trying to move from the BBC and US PBS viewers, over to the US mass market.  I then expect and accept there will be changes.  That's okay.  I worry more about how much fun it is to watch, not how slavishly they stick to what has gone before.  

There are a few points of bad medical science and such, but really, if I swallow time travel in the first place, I'm not going to worry so much about those, either.  What they did medically is no worse than how, on pretty much every medical drama, ever patience seems to needs to have electrified paddles slapped on their chest and someone yelling, "clear!".


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## Morrus (Mar 24, 2013)

RangerWickett said:


> She sure does like her tea/coffee.




Y'know, I didn't spot that at all.  Yeah - every single shot has her holding a mug of something.  Even when she's running/falling along the plane.


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## sabrinathecat (Mar 25, 2013)

Hey, if the changes made for a good show or a better show (like a lot of what RTD did), I would be fine with that. But it wasn't a good show. And by having the doctor start as 7th and then regenerating, that pretty much says "We are continuing from the original show." This is why McGann is the 8th doctor, not a new Doctor from a parallel universe.
And while the character may change the time line, or jump from one universe to any other parallel universe ("It used to be easy"), which might be why there are 3 Loch Ness monsters and 3 or 4 different conflicting civilizations that evolved on Mars, the character himself says true to himself.
Furthermore, the TV movie was pretty much universally panned. Not just by lone crackpots like me, but by just about every fan of the show.


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## Aeolius (Mar 26, 2013)

Gotta love Strax...
[video=youtube;Mxaka4HyP4Q]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mxaka4HyP4Q[/video]


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## Morrus (Mar 26, 2013)

Like I said before, that is SO targeted towards a kid's series on CBBC.  If one doesn't start by next year, I'll eat my hat!


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## sabrinathecat (Mar 27, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Like I said before, that is SO targeted towards a kid's series on CBBC.  If one doesn't start by next year, I'll eat my hat!



Will you post the video on YouTube?


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## Herschel (Mar 27, 2013)

I find the one set on the playground very nice. The sentiment is sweet (possibly to the point of pancreatic shock-inducing for some) but it has the Doctor wearing his "old" costume/outfit. It makes me wonder if there will be a specific reason for this or if it's just Moffat f*ing with us.


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## Morrus (Mar 28, 2013)

Herschel said:


> I find the one set on the playground very nice. The sentiment is sweet (possibly to the point of pancreatic shock-inducing for some) but it has the Doctor wearing his "old" costume/outfit. It makes me wonder if there will be a specific reason for this or if it's just Moffat f*ing with us.




It's bad that just the very concept of him (as in an adult male) talking to a child seems ludicrous to me in this day and age.  Then again, this is sci-fi.


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## Herschel (Mar 28, 2013)

True, but then again he's always talked more straight to kids and had less tolerance for "idiotic adults".


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## Morrus (Mar 29, 2013)

LESS THAN 24 HOURS TO GO!  ONE MORE SLEEP TILL DOCTOR WHO!


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## Herschel (Mar 30, 2013)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21980892
David Tennant and Billie Piper on board for the 50th Anniversary Special. Billi had said she hadn't been asked but I had theorized she didn't need to be as it was already in her contract.


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## Morrus (Mar 30, 2013)

40 minutes to go!  Woohoo!

(@Herschel - it's not that she didn't need to be asked; it's that they're all strictly instructed to lie rather than give anything away).


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## Aeolius (Mar 30, 2013)

The local coffee house, Geeksboro, has a small cinema in their basement. Guess what they are showing on the bog screen? Alas, I cannot make it there, this week. They are having a drawing for a TARDIS cake.


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## Richards (Mar 31, 2013)

Steven Moffat likes his "head turns all the way around" creatures, doesn't he?

   "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead" - those library announcers that spin around and reveal a human face
   "The Beast Below" - the Smilers
   "The Bells of Saint John" - the Wi-Fi robots

Nice to see Clara make it through an episode without getting herself killed.

Johnathan


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## Aeolius (Mar 31, 2013)

And it was odd to see what Mrs. Quickly has been doing with herself of late.


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## JustinAlexander (Mar 31, 2013)

Well, that was unfortunate. Another poorly written effort by Moffat filled with telling instead of showing and dull, repetitive echoes from other, better episodes from recent seasons. The fact that he spends the entire episode violating his own rules for how the story concept works simply adds a sad patina to the whole thing. I don't expect hard SF from _Doctor Who_, but I do at least expect the scripts to make sense within the context of themselves.

People working for a secret organization engaged in work they know to be illegal going on Facebook and posting their place of employment? Okay, that doesn't make much sense. But I guess I can roll with-- Oh, they're actually completely brainwashed and mind-controlled? Nope. You've gone too stupid now.

Of course, we also have the entire concept of the episode... which stands up to no scrutiny whatsoever.

(1) "There's something living in the wi-fi!" Okay. Sounds like an interesting science fantasy concept with some legs to it.
(2) "It can only find you if you click on it!" Okay. We have now established a rule.
(3) "But we can also mind control everyone in the world!" Uh... wait. How does that fit in with rule #2?
(4) "We also have ubiquitous surveillance which lets us look through every camera in London!" Okay, again... how does that fit in with rule #2?

Somewhere in that morass of "you have to click the wi-fi thing before we can read your mind, but we can read everyone's minds, and we can control everyone's minds, and we also have access to all the cameras in the world, but we need people to turn on the lights, but then we can just turn off the power grid, and we have mobile upload platforms that take the form of psychic-imprinted robots because, I dunno, just 'cause" Moffat lost track of whatever the heck he was supposed to be writing about.

And the episode shows the same sloppy, lazy, unintelligent writing at every level. "We can control the minds of everyone in London, but the only way we can think of to deal with Clara is to crash an airplane into her." Okay, that makes no sense. But let's roll with it. "We'll create a target for the plane by turning on all the lights around Clara, but turning out the lights everywhere else." Okay, that makes sense. That way the human pilots you've mind-controlled to crash the-- Oh, wait. You actually just knocked the pilots out and are flying the plane by remote control? Which means there are no eyes on the plane to target the light and the plan that makes no sense is now being executed in a way that makes no sense? Oh god.

Earlier I said this: It's actually been impressive how much the sheer charisma and talent of   the actors has been making up for some truly atrocious scripts, but  there's a limit to how much rope I'm willing to feed the show. The 8  episodes remaining in this season is the last opportunity I'm giving  Moffat to convince me that the show is still worth spending time on.

1 episode down with no improvement. 7 to go.


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## sabrinathecat (Mar 31, 2013)

Justin Alexander: THANK YOU!!!

wait, a bog screen? someone has a tv in the toilet? isn't that taking tele-adiction just a bit too far?


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## Morrus (Mar 31, 2013)

JustinAlexander said:


> (3) "But we can also mind control everyone in the world!" Uh... wait. How does that fit in with rule #2?



 Not everyone - just a lot of people.  The ones who clicked on the thing.



> (4) "We also have ubiquitous surveillance which lets us look through every camera in London!" Okay, again... how does that fit in with rule #2?




Not connected.  That's a separate capablity.

I'd agree, though, that this is the weakest episode so far.


----------



## Mark Hope (Mar 31, 2013)

Still, they managed to upload Craig Owens (James Corden's recurring character) - anybody else spot him in the wall of tv screens?  I wonder if he downloaded back into his body?


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## Bedrockgames (Mar 31, 2013)

Mark Hope said:


> Still, they managed to upload Craig Owens (James Corden's recurring character) - anybody else spot him in the wall of tv screens?  I wonder if he downloaded back into his body?




I would certainly expect him to get suckered into following the link. 

I rather enjoyed the episode. Maybe its just the freshness of having a new companion (and not having it be Rory or Amy) but I was pretty into it. I didn't have any issue with the plot as some others did (i didnt find the premise any harder to swallow than anything else in who). But the pacing at the end felt a little too rushed. Like this should have really been a two parter.


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## Mark Hope (Mar 31, 2013)

Yeah, I really enjoyed it.  There were some lovely moments and a few cool callbacks.  I like the new companion - will be interesting to see how she develops.  Yes, after the fact the episode doesn't really hold up to scrutiny, but I can't deny that I was actively enjoying it.  That's a far cry from how I experienced, say, Rory and Amy's last outing, which was also very plot-holey and only managed to annoy me - Bells of St John (great name) was enchanting despite its flaws.


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## Morrus (Mar 31, 2013)

So the book was by Amelia Williams.

The "Earls Court was an embarrassment" gag made me laugh.

Any other little things people noticed?


----------



## JustinAlexander (Mar 31, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Any other little things people noticed?




There are two ages skipped in the list of when Clara owned the book. One of them was 23, which was also the number that she couldn't type into the wi-fi password.

There's also the subtler gag around the book: "What chapter are you on?" "10." "11 is the best, you'll cry your eyes out."

Note, too, that we almost certainly saw her dead friend at the end of the Christmas Special. It makes me suspicious that the leaf being "page one" suggests that this Clara has already had an adventure with the Doctor, although I can't quite make that track.


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## Bedrockgames (Mar 31, 2013)

JustinAlexander said:


> There are two ages skipped in the list of when Clara owned the book. One of them was 23, which was also the number that she couldn't type into the wi-fi password.




there are 23 flavors in Dr. Pepper. The possibilities are...intriguing.


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## Herschel (Apr 1, 2013)

I noticed the book's author right away, and I kind of chuckled how he found a nice, quiet place for a good think and still (seemingly, anyway at this point) randomly 'bumped' in to her as she called the TARDIS. It was an easy tie-in from teh "prequel". It does make me wonder who the woman in the shop was that gave her the number and how that's going to come back in to play.


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## Rabulias (Apr 2, 2013)

Herschel said:


> It does make me wonder who the woman in the shop was that gave her the number and how that's going to come back in to play.




Maybe Clara mistyped the phone number like she did the wifi password? You always hear those stories about poeple whose home phone is one digit away from some popular business's phone number or some phone sex line.... Maybe the TARDIS is one digit away from a UK computer support line?


----------



## lin_fusan (Apr 3, 2013)

No comment on the cinematography? I thought the direction was incredible. I hope they bring back the director on another episode. 

I too liked it. The plot holes didn't destroy the plot for me. The only thing was the reveal of the intelligence behind the plot was so soft it was a pillow. I'm guessing it's the recurring villain, but it doesn't have the oomph as previous seasons.


----------



## Herschel (Apr 4, 2013)

I re-watched it on DVR and I can't help but think most of the episode is set up for later events.


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## Morrus (Apr 4, 2013)

lin_fusan said:


> No comment on the cinematography?




No but if I hear one more person insightfully observe that it was reminiscent of _Skyfall_, I'll likely teeter over the edge into homicidal mania.  The BBC really put that little "observation" out there in the last two weeks, and now everyone's parroting it as though they came up with it themselves. Well done to the BBC, I guess.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 4, 2013)

Herschel said:


> I re-watched it on DVR and I can't help but think most of the episode is set up for later events.




Well, after seeing it again and re-watching Silence in the Library, I am more convinced than ever that she is CAL.


----------



## Plane Sailing (Apr 4, 2013)

Bedrockgames said:


> Well, after seeing it again and re-watching Silence in the Library, I am more convinced than ever that she is CAL.




CAL?


----------



## Morrus (Apr 4, 2013)

Plane Sailing said:


> CAL?




The kid in the library.  I've heard the theory from a couple of people; doesn't convince me any more than any of the other theories do.  You can see anything you want to if you look hard enough.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 4, 2013)

Morrus said:


> The kid in the library.  I've heard the theory from a couple of people; doesn't convince me any more than any of the other theories do.  You can see anything you want to if you look hard enough.



Yes, I admit its entirely possible I am just seeing connections because I am looking at this particular episode. There are people out there who have made a much better case than I could, but the thing that actually clinches it for me is pretty simple. The last episode and the silence in the library have a lot of similarities with downloading people into a computer, the whole spinning head thing, etc. but primarily its because CAL calls River "Clever Girl".


----------



## Morrus (Apr 4, 2013)

Bedrockgames said:


> Yes, I admit its entirely possible I am just seeing connections because I am looking at this particular episode. There are people out there who have made a much better case than I could, but the thing that actually clinches it for me is pretty simple. The last episode and the silence in the library have a lot of similarities with downloading people into a computer, the whole spinning head thing, etc. but primarily its because CAL calls River "Clever Girl".




You could equally argue she's Amy, because he saw her as a child on a swing.  Moffat does re-use ideas a_ lot_, and I think folks could put together arguments for her being pretty much anything.  I can see where you're coming from, but it's only 1% convincing to me - it would need a heck of a lot more!


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 4, 2013)

Morrus said:


> You could equally argue she's Amy, because he saw her as a child on a swing.  Moffat does re-use ideas a_ lot_, and I think folks could put together arguments for her being pretty much anything.  I can see where you're coming from, but it's only 1% convincing to me - it would need a heck of a lot more!




A friendy wager?


----------



## Morrus (Apr 4, 2013)

Bedrockgames said:


> A friendy wager?




That she's CAL?  Sure, why not! 

As an aside - Moffat has said there's no possible way we can get it.  I don't like it when he says that, because that means the clues aren't really there, it's just pulled out of a hat at the end and he acts like he did something clever.


----------



## Morrus (Apr 4, 2013)

Oh, re. The number 23, which she can't type and is also missing from her age list:

November 23rd.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 4, 2013)

Morrus said:


> That she's CAL?  Sure, why not!




excellent. If she turns out not to be CAL, I will write a blog entry entitled Morrus was Right and I was Wrong on the Bedrock Blog.



> As an aside - Moffat has said there's no possible way we can get it.  I don't like it when he says that, because that means the clues aren't really there, it's just pulled out of a hat at the end and he acts like he did something clever.




Yes, this made me nervous about offering the wager, but I suspect he is just trying to throw us off the scent.


----------



## Grumpy RPG Reviews (Apr 4, 2013)

Morrus said:


> November 23rd.




Guy Fawkes Day?

I noticed that while they never called it that, but she monkeyed with the Dalek "memory cloud" to wipe the Doctor from their files. Which is a least thematically similar to elements from the Library episodes and the other episodes with her.


----------



## Morrus (Apr 4, 2013)

Grumpy RPG Reviews said:


> Guy Fawkes Day?
> .




Errmm. No.


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## Rabulias (Apr 5, 2013)

Grumpy RPG Reviews said:


> Guy Fawkes Day?



Fortunately there's a catchy rhyme to help you: "Remember, remember, the 5th of November: gunpowder treason and plot."

I think November 23rd (1963) was when Dr Who premiered.


----------



## Morrus (Apr 5, 2013)

Rabulias said:


> Fortunately there's a catchy rhyme to help you: "Remember, remember, the 5th of November: gunpowder treason and plot."
> 
> I think November 23rd (1963) was when Dr Who premiered.




Yep; it's the 50th anniversary, and the date of the 50th anniversary special episode.


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## sabrinathecat (Apr 5, 2013)

I just hope the story is worthy of the occasion.
Maybe they can get Terrance Dicks to write it. He's still around. One of the few people who is from the Golden Age of early/mid 70's Doctor Who.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 5, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> I just hope the story is worthy of the occasion.
> Maybe they can get Terrance Dicks to write it. He's still around. One of the few people who is from the Golden Age of early/mid 70's Doctor Who.




There is so much build up and such high expectations, I think it will be huge challenge for them.


----------



## Morrus (Apr 5, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> I just hope the story is worthy of the occasion.
> Maybe they can get Terrance Dicks to write it. He's still around. One of the few people who is from the Golden Age of early/mid 70's Doctor Who.




They're already filming it. Tennant is on set. Moffat wrote it.


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## Grumpy RPG Reviews (Apr 6, 2013)

Do you think they will bring back Gallifrey and the Time Lords?


----------



## sabrinathecat (Apr 6, 2013)

Only if they are willing to ignore or completely rewrite the End of Time special.
So, it is entirely possible. Why not. They are quite content to rewrite the rules of the episodes in mid-episode, never mind previous episodes in the same season/series.


----------



## Morrus (Apr 6, 2013)

Grumpy RPG Reviews said:


> Do you think they will bring back Gallifrey and the Time Lords?




They will eventually, I'm sure -- I don't think it'll be this year though.  But the anniversary special is so secretive that - well, who knows?


----------



## Grumpy RPG Reviews (Apr 6, 2013)

I am not up on the rumors for the special. Are they bringing back all the living Doctors?


----------



## Morrus (Apr 6, 2013)

Grumpy RPG Reviews said:


> I am not up on the rumors for the special. Are they bringing back all the living Doctors?




They'v all denied it.  But then Tennant and Piper denied they'd been asked right up until it was announced they were back, so all we know for certain is they all lie a lot!

Eclestone, apparently, has refused though.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 6, 2013)

Grumpy RPG Reviews said:


> I am not up on the rumors for the special. Are they bringing back all the living Doctors?




The rumors are all the doctors will be appearing (including the ones who are no longer alive). But as far as I know only David Tennet and Billie Piper have confirmed.


----------



## sabrinathecat (Apr 6, 2013)

Maybe we'll get to see McGann without the silly wig. Big Finish Productions started giving him more normal hair on the covers of their disks.


----------



## Aeolius (Apr 7, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> Maybe we'll get to see McGann without the silly wig. Big Finish Productions started giving him more normal hair on the covers of their disks.




Awww... I liked the silly wig. It gave him a Pertwee-like appearance that matched his attire (and TARDIS key!).


----------



## Herschel (Apr 8, 2013)

Plus all the hair jokes in the Big Finish stories were kind of fun. I really enjoy McGann's Doctor. 

I enjoyed this week's episode even though it was definitely one of the ones geared heavily towards kids. I'm good with those though.


----------



## Grumpy RPG Reviews (Apr 8, 2013)

If you had to recast the Doctors who have passed, who would you tap for the role? 

What would be a suitable story for the 50th?

Would it involve junkyards in 1963?


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 8, 2013)

Herschel said:


> Plus all the hair jokes in the Big Finish stories were kind of fun. I really enjoy McGann's Doctor.
> 
> I enjoyed this week's episode even though it was definitely one of the ones geared heavily towards kids. I'm good with those though.




yeah, I quite liked the visuals of the aliens on the planet (definitely very George Lcas inspired like a lot of people have been saying). I am sure a lot of folks found this part silly, but I rather enjoyed the musical aspect to it. It was a very simple story, and the final bad-guy felt a little too vague and confusing (just was never quite certain what affect the doctor was having on him). But I did like the episode. 

Some interestng clues too. The doctor mentioned his granddaughter and the god was called granddfather, so that seemed pretty significant. I also wonder if the leaf being the "the most important in human history" has greater importance (perhaps literally being the most important in history) than sentimental value attached to it by Clara. The whole bit with the tardis not translating for her was also kind of interesting.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 8, 2013)

Grumpy RPG Reviews said:


> If you had to recast the Doctors who have passed, who would you tap for the role?
> 
> What would be a suitable story for the 50th?
> 
> Would it involve junkyards in 1963?




I think this is a much better idea than using special effects. Unfortunately, as an American my knowledge of British actors is pretty lean so not sure.


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## Morrus (Apr 8, 2013)

Problem is some of the still living ones don't look like the same people any more.  If they're involved in the anniversary stuff, I don't think it'll be in a guest-starring role.  They might appear in documentaries or stuff.

On this week's episode, I didn't quite get the leaf thing. So the leaf is more valuable because it has "an infinite number of possible futures".  But so does everything else.  So basically anything the god/monster eats will kill it.


----------



## Grumpy RPG Reviews (Apr 8, 2013)

Maybe it is a reference to Forest of the Dead.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 8, 2013)

Morrus said:


> On this week's episode, I didn't quite get the leaf thing. So the leaf is more valuable because it has "an infinite number of possible futures".  But so does everything else.  So basically anything the god/monster eats will kill it.




I do think that bit was something of a stretch (they probably could have stopped with the doctor feeding it his memories). My guess is it is not the object itself but the infinite possibilities clara attached to it due to her mother's death(and maybe something about her own nature as well). But yes, it seems any other object associated with a dead relative (and I am assuming there some such objects being offered in the stadium) should have been able to achieve the same result. Unless I am missing something. 

I was pretty back and forth on the whole speech at the end thing. It is a standard part of the show I suppose (in fact the doctor's speech at the end seemed very 10th doctor to me) but I agree with you there seemed to be some logic issues going on (and I dont normally overthink those in who). I like the idea of the doctor giving up his memories to defeat the god, but he didnt seem to actually lose them. So that left me a bit confused (a doctor with pockets of amnesia would be an interesting turn).


----------



## Nellisir (Apr 8, 2013)

OK, just got back home and watched the new one.  Eh.  Not terrible, not incredible.  I feel like I missed a lot of in-jokes and pop-up characters or something.

I've not been following a schedule or anything.  Is there another one coming along this year, or do we get to wait another 35 months or something?


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## Nellisir (Apr 8, 2013)

Nellisir said:


> I've not been following a schedule or anything.  Is there another one coming along this year, or do we get to wait another 35 months or something?




And looking at Morrus's most recent comments, it looks like there's another one out, so it either hasn't aired on BBC America yet or my DVR screwed up.  Ugh.  I don't want to do research.


----------



## Morrus (Apr 8, 2013)

Nellisir said:


> OK, just got back home and watched the new one.  Eh.  Not terrible, not incredible.  I feel like I missed a lot of in-jokes and pop-up characters or something.
> 
> I've not been following a schedule or anything.  Is there another one coming along this year, or do we get to wait another 35 months or something?




8 in a row now (we just saw #2), then a wait till the anniversary special on Nov 23, then the Xmas special.


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## Herschel (Apr 8, 2013)

I liked the leaf bit. The whole place traded/fed on sentimental value rather than intrinsic/monetary value and the leaf was not only symbolic for her mother, but was also "Chapter One" of Clara's book so it had extreme "value" there. It's more set up for something.   

I know Eccleston didn't leave with the warm, fuzzies but I'd hope(d) he'd get over that for the 50th. McGann, Eccleston, Tennant and Smith are probably the only ones who can still pull off "themselves" without heavy CG. Of course maybe there will be the Great Intelligence/whatever, siphoning the Doctors' life energy through the vortex or some such.


----------



## sabrinathecat (Apr 8, 2013)

William Hartnell was already recast once for The Five Doctors with William Hurndell.
I can't think of anyone I'd recast. David Troughton is the closest in looks to his father, but seems from the episode he was in to be too tall. By a lot.
Sean Pertwee does not look enough like his father.
Both David and Sean have been approached by Big Finish to imitate their fathers, and both declined. They are actors in their own right, and didn't want to be surrogates for their fathers.
BFP Doctor Who Unbound (the "what if" line with different actors as The Doctor) has an alternate 1st Doctor played very well by Geoffrey Bayldon, who could probably do the roll of 1st Doctor if he had a similar wig.

One of the Big Finish stories (spare parts) said that 76 Totter's Lane was now a car-park in an industrial area. It would be fun to have the address prominently visible.


----------



## Grumpy RPG Reviews (Apr 8, 2013)

What villain is epic enough to serve as the antagonist for the 50th?


----------



## JustinAlexander (Apr 8, 2013)

Herschel said:


> I know Eccleston didn't leave with the warm,  fuzzies but I'd hope(d) he'd get over that for the 50th. McGann,  Eccleston, Tennant and Smith are probably the only ones who can still  pull off "themselves" without heavy CG. Of course maybe there will be  the Great Intelligence/whatever, siphoning the Doctors' life energy  through the vortex or some such.




I thought Davison pulled it off credibly enough in the short they  did a few seasons back. When they were doing these specials back in the  '80s, all they did was murmur about the Doctor's proximity to his future  self closing a time circuit and causing his former incarnations to look  older. Hang a lampshade on it and the audience won't care.

Meanwhile, Matt Smith keeps dressing more and more like Hartnell.



Morrus said:


> On this week's episode, I didn't quite get the leaf thing. So the leaf is more valuable because it has "an infinite number of possible futures".  But so does everything else.  So basically anything the god/monster eats will kill it.




The episode wasn't too bad until the ending, which turned into a cascading failure.

First, the _deus ex screwdriver_ has finally reached the point where I can no longer tolerate it. It's gotten pretty bad over the past few seasons in terms of being a magic wand that can affect any inanimate object in any way the writers want; but now the Doctor can just wave it emphatically in the direction of people and have it serve as an impediment. It only fails to work when the writers decide it would be more dramatic for it not to. They've dug themselves a deep, deep, deep hole with it and they show no interest in getting themselves out of it.

Second, there was the Doctor's interminable-but-empty-and-ultimately-meaningless speech about "take it all".

Third, there's the leaf. Which, as you say, makes no sense whatsoever. The thing can eat an entire kid without missing a beat because of the "infinite number of possible futures" it is directly snuffing out, but a leaf which merely _represents_ those possible futures is the thing's kryptonite? (And even that doesn't make sense, because that's not actually what the leaf is established as actually representing earlier in the episode.) Out of the millions of people who have offered up millions of sacrifices over the past few aeons, nobody has ever given up something that was sentimental because it was important to their dead mum until Clara came along? Complete nonsense.

And, on a minor note, why do you give Clara a speech explaining exactly what she's doing and then have the Doctor immediately repeat it point for point? It's not adding any credibility to your poorly conceived story.



Bedrockgames said:


> I was pretty back and forth on the whole  speech at the end thing. It is a standard part of the show I suppose (in  fact the doctor's speech at the end seemed very 10th doctor to me) but I  agree with you there seemed to be some logic issues going on (and I  dont normally overthink those in who). I like the idea of the doctor  giving up his memories to defeat the god, but he didnt seem to actually  lose them. So that left me a bit confused (a doctor with pockets of  amnesia would be an interesting turn).




When I watched Series 5, I actually thought Moffat was consciously deconstructing some of the elements of RTD's run which had become cliche. For example, Amy's whole "I'm just looking for a quick snog because I've got cold feet" arc seemed like a really nice subversion of RTD's sequence of doe-eyed companions. Notably, I thought it was great in "The Pandorica Opens" when the Doctor gives this huge, triumphant speech about how they're all too terrified of him to do anything... and then it turns out that, no, they were pretty much counting on him being a loud-mouthed egotist. And then, at the end of Season 6, I thought the whole "I'm going to let them all think I'm dead" (while making no sense when you're a time traveler, but whatever) was an inspired way of backing off the bombast-filled, "end of the universe" stuff for awhile.

So one of my disappointments with Season 7 is that it turns out nothing has changed: We're still getting empty regurgitation of stuff that's become completely cliched.

When Eccleston did "yeah, and doesn't that scare you to death?" at the end of S1 it worked because it was backed up by an entire season establishing a specific reason for the Daleks to be terrified of the Doctor and it was immediately supported with meaningful action. But the trope of the Doctor giving a speech full of bravado that somehow saves the day through sheer bombast has become completely fetishized over the last six seasons. And the hollow, empty, meaningless husk that's been left behind is what we saw on display in this episode.


----------



## Herschel (Apr 8, 2013)

If you believe the web stories, it's the Zygons who will be the villains for the 50th Anniversary Special. There's pictures of an actor in the costume floating supposedly from the set. Joanna Page (Love Actually) and John Hurt are also supposedly on board. Will there be multiple villains, or could one costumed actor be misdirection?
http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/W...tory-18605861-detail/story.html#axzz2PuFNLadq

http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/doctor-...assic-villains-confirmed-for-50th-anniversary


----------



## Plane Sailing (Apr 8, 2013)

JustinAlexander said:


> The episode wasn't too bad until the ending, which turned into a cascading failure.
> 
> First, the deus ex screwdriver has finally reached the point where I can no longer tolerate it. It's gotten pretty bad over the past few seasons in terms of being a magic wand that can affect any inanimate object in any way the writers want; but now the Doctor can just wave it emphatically in the direction of people and have it serve as an impediment. It only fails to work when the writers decide it would be more dramatic for it not to. They've dug themselves a deep, deep, deep hole with it and they show no interest in getting themselves out of it.
> 
> ...




I couldn't agree more, sadly.

It might have been a neat turn that the 'mummy' wasn't actually the foe but was just the alarm clock. But the screwdriver ("great at opening things") now telekinetically lifts doors? and creates forcefields? What?

The doctors speech that turns out to be meaningless? What?

The leaf which kills the star? What?

Although I like what they've been doing with Clara, and I think she has potential, this has been one of the worst episodes (for me) since the absorbaloff.

I know, that's saying something.


----------



## sabrinathecat (Apr 8, 2013)

Watched Victory of the Daleks last night because of insomnia. Still the beginning of the horror of series 5. The number of bombastic Doctor saving the world, and it's Amy who does all the heavy lifting. Just like she did in the story before (the last *Good *Episode I've seen) The Doctor was mostly just a plaything. Seems to be the pattern now. Everyone can twist and manipulate him. Seems silly. But then, most of VoD seems very silly and childish.

As for a 50th villain:
the Daleks are just over-used and don't have the gravitas anymore. And too obvious a choice. Likely, but it would be a let-down.
Dare we hope for Omega? Without the Time Lords to help, can the Doctor face him a 3rd time and survive?
Different Cybermen? No, Cybers don't have enough to them either.
The Black Guardian? That could be good, though Valentine Dyle would be hard to replace or live up to.
The Valyard? That could have some interesting possibilities.
Susan or Romana, back after escaping from the time war, but twisted?
Iris Wildthyme? Odd, but could be a good comedy episode. Maybe for a Christmas special instead.
The Rani? Dinosaur Embryos and whatever weapons she developed during the Time War--perhaps even a shield to mask her existence?
How about: the previous Doctors as villains. They manifest somehow and are there to give 11 a good stern lecture to get him back into shape. Would be a great way to fix some of the dafter aspects of the current show.
Gennie: She's been running a-muck, been twisted by the evil she has encountered, and her Dad has to set her back onto task.
K-9 has been corrupted by cybermen and unleashed a virus into the Earth's computers. Combined with Mr Smith, all of Earth's time is threatened. And the first thing that happens when they meet, is K-9 destroys the Sonic Screwdriver.

But in truth, there can be only one fit villain for the 50th: cave-men.

EDIT: Hurdell was great as Hartnell. JNT gave him the job after seeing him in an episode of Blake's7 a couple weeks earlier.


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## Richards (Apr 8, 2013)

If they start replacing older Doctors with other actors who do their best to imitate the original actors, I hope we get some up to par with Richard Hurndell's role as William Hartnell's First Doctor in "The Five Doctors."  That guy did a fantastic job!

Johnathan


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## Aeolius (Apr 9, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> But in truth, there can be only one fit villain for the 50th: cave-men.




I beg to disagree. Call it wishful thinking, but....


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## sabrinathecat (Apr 9, 2013)

Good thought, but Cave Men would still be better. Think about it.


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## Grumpy RPG Reviews (Apr 9, 2013)

[chanting]Cave Men! Cave Men! Cave Men![/chanting]


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## JustinAlexander (Apr 9, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> Watched Victory of the Daleks last night because of insomnia.




I haven't watched it since it was broadcast, but "Victory of the Daleks" may be the worst episode of nuWho. (I'm only hedging my bets because I refuse to rewatch it and confirm just how bad it was.)

Its only saving grace was that Moffat used it as a chance to reboot the Daleks and then _not pretend to destroy them all_. (This was a mistake RTD repeated over and over and over and over again during his run of the show, forcing him to waste valuable time and credibility explaining why the last time we saw the Daleks get wiped out they hadn't _really_ been wiped out.)

But this was turned out to be just another example of Moffat seeming to clean the slate only to immediately reverse course: You go to all that effort to have the true Daleks wipe out the corrupted, human-hybrid Daleks... and then you turn around and use the next solo appearance of the Daleks to have them create human-hybrid Daleks in "Asylum of the Daleks"? Why? Did you forget your own continuity from just two years ago?


----------



## Herschel (Apr 9, 2013)

Plane Sailing said:


> Although I like what they've been doing with Clara, and I think she has potential, this has been one of the worst episodes (for me) since the absorbaloff.




Which was another of the "kiddie" episodes.


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## Morrus (Apr 9, 2013)

JustinAlexander said:


> I haven't watched it since it was broadcast, but "Victory of the Daleks" may be the worst episode of nuWho.




_Love & Monsters_ was worse by miles.  And man, do I hate this "nuWho" term I've seen appearing everywhere online.


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## Grumpy RPG Reviews (Apr 9, 2013)

I thought everyone agreed Love and Monsters was the worst of New Who, and one of the worst of the entire show.


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## sabrinathecat (Apr 9, 2013)

"NuWho" is ugly, but it seems to be pretty clear that we are stuck with it.
VoD not only rebooted the Daleks, but had Bill Patterson as the Professor--haven't seen him in anything for years. Sadly, that's where the good ends. Churchill actor was awful, as was... just about everything else.
L&M wasn't the worst, but it is a very off-beat episode that doesn't really fit in that well. OK, I skipped it myself last time through.
I think worst may be the sea pirates taking over a space ship.
I decided to go ahead and rewatch 5&6 to see if I can find what it is that everyone else seems to enjoy about them. Still looking.


----------



## Morrus (Apr 9, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> was awful, as was... just about everything else.... to see if I can find what it is that everyone else seems to enjoy about them. Still looking.




[Edit - what's the point?  I give up.  Enjoy!]


----------



## Herschel (Apr 9, 2013)

Links don't matter, apparently.


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## sabrinathecat (Apr 9, 2013)

Because sometimes it's just the mood I'm in when I watched it the first time, and later re-watch changes my opinion.
Sometimes:  "well, it isn't good, but compared to everything else that's on... Or to what came later..."


----------



## Nellisir (Apr 9, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> ...later... changes my opinion.




:blink:

Sorry. Do not believe.  No proof without photos.


----------



## Richards (Apr 9, 2013)

I'll still take "Love and Monsters" over "Fear Her" any day of the week.

Johnathan


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## sabrinathecat (Apr 9, 2013)

And besides, we all know the worst episode of Who ever was "Greatest Show in the Galaxy", Right?


----------



## Herschel (Apr 10, 2013)

Another weird Moffatism: Did Clara's mom die the day the Autons attacked in S1E1?


----------



## JustinAlexander (Apr 10, 2013)

Morrus said:


> _Love & Monsters_ was worse by miles.




I've actually never understood the overwhelming loathing peopel have for "Love & Monsters". I don't think it's top tier, but I thought it was an interesting story that was well told. Possibly I'm biased because I like Marc Warren and Shirley Henderson.

In the Moffat seasons, I would easily rank "Victory of the Daleks", "Vampires of Venice", and "Curse of the Black Spot" below "Love & Monsters". I'd probably also toss "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship", "A Town Called Mercy", "The Power of Three", "The Angels Take Manhattan", and probably "The Snowmen" onto that list. (But several of those I've only seen once, so won't swear to it.)


----------



## MerricB (Apr 10, 2013)

JustinAlexander said:


> I haven't watched it since it was broadcast, but "Victory of the Daleks" may be the worst episode of nuWho. (I'm only hedging my bets because I refuse to rewatch it and confirm just how bad it was.)




I really enjoyed the first half. It was just in the second half everything went horribly wrong. Watch until the Doctor is taken to the Dalek spaceship and stop.


----------



## JustinAlexander (Apr 10, 2013)

MerricB said:


> I really enjoyed the first half. It was just in the second half everything went horribly wrong. Watch until the Doctor is taken to the Dalek spaceship and stop.




That's about the first third of the episode.

And you're a right: It's OK up to that point. A trifle repetitive and overwritten (the Doctor has three arguments with Churchill which are just the two of them shouting "nuh-uh" and "uh-huh" at each other). But nothing too terrible.

Once the cookie comes out, though, it's pretty much all down hill from there: Daleks on Parade, converting airplanes for a space war in less than 5 minutes, the Doctor standing around waiting to get shot for no reason, the Doctor waiting to disrupt their shields until after a bunch of people have needlessly died, repeating the exact same Earth-or-Dalek decision that was made at the end of S1 (but only half-assed this time), the Daleks remotely activating a timer instead of just remotely detonating the bomb, the Doctor doing a Captain Kirk on the bomb... God. It's terrible.

Although, hey, look at that. It's got the same ending as "Rings of Akhaten": The Doctor gives a big speech full of bombast and nonsense. It doesn't work. The companion steps up, uses the same tactic with less bombast and a slightly different flavor, and it totally works that time.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 10, 2013)

JustinAlexander said:


> I've actually never understood the overwhelming loathing peopel have for "Love & Monsters". I don't think it's top tier, but I thought it was an interesting story that was well told. Possibly I'm biased because I like Marc Warren and Shirley Henderson.
> 
> .)




I have to confess that I enjoyed this episode thoroughly. Though I realize most people despised it.


----------



## Elodan (Apr 10, 2013)

Morrus said:


> _Love & Monsters_ was worse by miles.  And man, do I hate this "nuWho" term I've seen appearing everywhere online.




It should be regeneratedWho.


----------



## JustinAlexander (Apr 11, 2013)

As a result of this thread, I've been randomly sampling older episodes.

"Blink" is so very, very good. The comparison to what's currently being produced is painful. Particularly notable for the "Rings of Akhaten", given that the ending of the sun god is literally identical to the original of the MO the weeping angels -- the consumption of unlived days. The whole of space and time, but we just keep coming back to the same half dozen ideas.


----------



## Mark Hope (Apr 11, 2013)

I thought Love and Monsters was lots of fun.

As for the more recent episodes, I've completely given up on them making sense.  I watch the show with my kids and my metric for "is it a good episode?" is simply "did the kids laugh, jump, hide or look otherwise engaged?"  If so, then it's a good episode.  I get the feeling that's all Moffat is interested in as well.  A shame, because there have been some really stellar stories since the show returned.  It just seems like the current approach is "well, it's a kids show so it doesn't have to make sense."  OK.  If that's how it is, then that's how it is.  But it could be so much more.


----------



## Mark CMG (Apr 11, 2013)

Doctor Who has always been a schlocky but fun show, old and new.  It's very evident when watching that the writers, crew, and cast all have a very good time making it.  Over analyzing light entertainment rather misses the point, IMO.  I watched the old Doctor Who beginning with Baker (like a lot of Americans my age) and watched some of the older ones when they aired.  My watching of Davidson-Era Who and after was catch-as-catch-can.  The new stuff I catch more often than not but I don't block time for the show.  It's fun just like the old stuff was and I can't help but think that over-investing in the show makes enjoying it somewhat less likely.


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## Herschel (Apr 11, 2013)

It would also be interesting to see Torchwood make another run as well as the speculated Madame Vastra and Jenny kids show. Torchwood was much darker and more adult, Sarah Jane was for the kids and Doctor Who slid in the middle nicely. 

Love & Monsters and Rings of Akhetan (to me) both were pretty kid-centric, and there's usually one in each season like Aliens of London/World War Three, Fear Her, The Runaway Bride, Partners in Crime and The Beast Below. These are often my least-favorite episodes (excepting The Beast Below) but also often my nephew's favorites.


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## sabrinathecat (Apr 12, 2013)

Torchwood was more adolescent than adult. It tried to be adult, but did so simply by having swearing and lots of bed-hopping. It seemed to be as if it didn't know what adult really meant. Also, the show did not really have a focus.

Even in the campy old days of the 70s and 80s, Barry Letts, and Terrance Dicks, and the other producers would have a stock of the latest scientific journals on hand to ground the show in the latest theories (even if they were later disproven). Some of the ideas seem very simplistic now (plate tectonics shifting the continents was brand new when The Silurians was first aired).
The new show, esp lately, seems to have switched tracks to "The Doctor is a fairy-tale Wizard, and the sonic screw-driver is his magic wand". Yes, River even says words to that effect. It just seems to have lost it's driving life and energy. Stories don't even bother to be internally consistent anymore. The arcs seem very forced and shoe-horned in (even more than in RTD's time). I'd prefer 12 or even 6 really good stories with no arc to 15 meh or weak stories with a blah arc.
But that's just me.
I went through series 1-4 last month, and had a blast. Even the 4.5 specials (though Planet of the Doomed was missing from NetFlix for some reason. Oh, and I skipped Lover&Monsters and Fear Her.)


----------



## sabrinathecat (Apr 14, 2013)

I have a question.
Season 6 has Amy's tacked on intro during the opening credits. Do they get rid of that for 7? Honestly, it reminds me of Remington Steele, Quantum Leap and a bunch of bad 80s TV openings. Doctor Who is supposed to be better than that.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 14, 2013)

The intro was there to bring new viewers up to speed I believe. Seems an odd thing to complain about frankly. 

Personally I think the last few seasons have been quite good. Not the same as the 10th doctor, but good in its own way (which beats just redoing those years). In all I think season 3 is probably my favorite. The new ones are thoroughly enjoyable as well though. Really, given who they had to follow, Matt Smith and Moffat have done an amazing job.


----------



## Richards (Apr 14, 2013)

I thought last night's episode, "Cold War," did a good job of bringing back an old villain, the Ice Warriors, and retconning their admittedly somewhat silly-looking costumes from the 1960s in such a way as not to "undo" the fact that they've always looked that way in past appearances.  All in all, a rather clever way to have your cake and eat it too.

Johnathan


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## Morrus (Apr 14, 2013)

Bedrockgames said:


> The intro was there to bring new viewers up to speed I believe. Seems an odd thing to complain about frankly.




Hmmm?  Intro?


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 14, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Hmmm?  Intro?




The bit where Amy explained how she met the dr in the 6th season (I think it played right before the theme song).


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## Morrus (Apr 14, 2013)

Bedrockgames said:


> The bit where Amy explained how she met the dr in the 6th season (I think it played right before the theme song).




I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe you guys got something extra?


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 14, 2013)

Morrus said:


> I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe you guys got something extra?




Could be something they added to the American viewings. If you watch it on Netflix they have it too. It's quite short and just explains how she met him when she was a girl, he came back and has a TARDIS that travels time.


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## Morrus (Apr 14, 2013)

Bedrockgames said:


> Could be something they added to the American viewings. If you watch it on Netflix they have it too. It's quite short and just explains how she met him when she was a girl, he came back and has a TARDIS that travels time.




Not on our version. Weird.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 14, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Not on our version. Weird.




This is it here: http://youtu.be/-L4dJ8n64HE

i think what may have occured is they realized more people in other countries were starting to watch the show, so they added that in to make it easier for those who started watching in the middle of the season or were not familiar with the concept. Right now though they just go straight into the normal intro.


----------



## Morrus (Apr 14, 2013)

Bedrockgames said:


> This is it here: http://youtu.be/-L4dJ8n64HE.




Nope, never seen that.


----------



## JustinAlexander (Apr 15, 2013)

Mark CMG said:


> Over analyzing light entertainment rather misses the point, IMO.




Whereas I would consider the inability to distinguish between, say, _Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon_ and _The Avengers_ because you don't spend any time thinking critically about your entertainment to be rather missing the point.

I enjoy adventure stories and exciting romps and all that sort of thing. But none of that requires me to check my brain at the door.



sabrinathecat said:


> Torchwood was more adolescent than adult.  It tried to be adult, but did so simply by having swearing and lots of  bed-hopping. It seemed to be as if it didn't know what adult really  meant. Also, the show did not really have a focus.




Conceptually, _Torchwood_ was really interesting in S1: It was the story of what happens to normal people who have to routinely cope with the stuff the Doctor faces without the Doctor's resources. It was a story of people who had been broken and broken badly. The execution was incredibly inconsistent and often inadequate, but there was a solid thematic concept in there.

S2 of _Torchwood_ should have been about a Captain Jack who had been reinvigorated and "fixed" by the Doctor working to similarly reinvigorate and fix the people around him. And it was occasionally about that... but usually it just ended up being about crude soap opera or nothing at all.



Morrus said:


> Nope, never seen that.




Yeah. That's terrible. I'm glad I'm not seeing it.

The audio clip they're using for it is from the season 5 preview.



Richards said:


> I thought last night's episode, "Cold War," did a  good job of bringing back an old villain, the Ice Warriors, and  retconning their admittedly somewhat silly-looking costumes from the  1960s in such a way as not to "undo" the fact that they've always looked  that way in past appearances.  All in all, a rather clever way to have  your cake and eat it too.




Fantastic production design across the board.

Pity about the script, which once again starts strong and then fizzles out into nonsense and irrelevancy and mediocre writing.

You've got the Captain vs. First Officer stuff, which consists entirely of catchphrase debate ("War is great! War is bad! War is great! War is bad!") and then doesn't go anywhere. You've got the script repeating the thesis of the episode ("just one missile!") at least four times in case the audience had dozed off and missed it the last three times. You've got a conclusion that's almost carbon-pasted from last week in which the Doctor yells more empty catchphrases at the alien, the entire audience gets the points, and then we irrelevantly _repeat_ the exact same conclusion 5 seconds later but in a less effective way (featuring Clara meaningfully doing something which, upon any reflection, is actually completely meaningless).

You're only producing 14 episodes per year: Surely there's enough time for someone to look at these scripts and product a second draft, right?


----------



## Mark CMG (Apr 15, 2013)

JustinAlexander said:


> Whereas I would consider the inability to distinguish between, say, _Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon_ and _The Avengers_ because you don't spend any time thinking critically about your entertainment to be rather missing the point.





A poor analogy, IMO, but I won't spend time discussing it further as it runs contrary to my point.




JustinAlexander said:


> I enjoy adventure stories and exciting romps and all that sort of thing. But none of that requires me to check my brain at the door.





Sometimes it is for the best.


----------



## sabrinathecat (Apr 15, 2013)

Bedrockgames said:


> This is it here: http://youtu.be/-L4dJ8n64HE
> 
> i think what may have occured is they realized more people in other countries were starting to watch the show, so they added that in to make it easier for those who started watching in the middle of the season or were not familiar with the concept. Right now though they just go straight into the normal intro.



The problem being that Doctor Who never had any of that before, in any version or iteration of the show. The closest thing was the TV movie intro. We just jumped in with both feet and ran with it, and everything was fine. Including this intro is horrible, and detracts from the mood. It changes the emphasis from being The Doctor Who show to the AMY POND show. And it is just totally unnecessary. You could argue the the intro is in the same flavor as the SJA intro, but the target audience for DW doesn't need that.
Really wish they'd get rid of it.
I remember it being on the DVDs too.
Sadly, NetFlix is buying the stupid 1/2-season sets, so no Christmas special, and none of the other extras.


----------



## Herschel (Apr 17, 2013)

RTD opened teh "rebirth" in 2005 from the standpoint of Rose rather than the Doctor also. He commented that for new viewers he wanted to give them someone human to relate to and discover the Doctor from that context.


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## geradarys (Apr 17, 2013)

...enjoying it as always!


----------



## Aeolius (Apr 17, 2013)

Tennant and Smith - Photos!


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## sabrinathecat (Apr 17, 2013)

Neat photo.

The companion is always there to help the audience relate to the Doctor. But the Show is about _The Doctor_, not _The Companion_. It wasn't necessary before. The intro babble is not necessary now.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 17, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> Neat photo.
> 
> The companion is always there to help the audience relate to the Doctor. But the Show is about _The Doctor_, not _The Companion_. It wasn't necessary before. The intro babble is not necessary now.




Meh. If it helped bring in a few extra viewers or provided some context to new folks, I dont see the harm of an intro like that.


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## jonesy (Apr 18, 2013)

The show might be about the doctor, but it's not as if the companion being the opening focus is a new thing.


----------



## MerricB (Apr 18, 2013)

jonesy said:


> The show might be about the doctor, but it's not as if the companion being the opening focus is a new thing.




Susan is the trigger to bring Ian and Barbara into the Doctor's world and is only the focus of the story for about 10 minutes or so. Then the Doctor comes on screen...

Ian and Barbara take the part of the audience identification figures. You're introduced to the Doctor's world through their eyes. And, because there are two of them, they discuss with each other their reactions to what's going on. 

As people became more used to the Doctor, this wasn't so essential, and by the end of Season 2, with the departure of Ian and Barbara, the figures were gone for the next year. The next time you get these sort of figures is with Ben and Polly - especially in the Power of the Daleks, where they have to deal with the regenerated Doctor. 

Once again, you get the companion meeting the third Doctor in Spearhead from Space: Liz Shaw is - for that story - our bridge into the world of the Doctor. This only really lasts for this serial, though. Sarah Jane Smith is probably the best audience identification figure to come around, and she keeps the role pretty much throughout her run. It's very obvious in the Time Warrior.


Looking at the "story of the companion", which is a key feature of the new series of Doctor Who. It's mostly absent from classic Doctor Who serials; the first real attempt at it came with Leela, but the change in production team gave us only one real story where her potential arc was explored (the classic Talons of Weng-Chiang). The next attempt was with Turlough, and we got a really great arc through his initial three stories (the Black Guardian trilogy: Mawdryn Undead, Terminus and Enlightenment), but the character was then basically forgotten about.

The first companion that really had a large focus of the story around them was Ace. It might not be on the level of the new series, but certainly with the Curse of Fenric, Ghost Light and Survival you have the Doctor actively seeking out things that have to do with his companion. (Or at least, dealing with). 

The trouble I'm having with Clara at present is that she isn't the Clara I fell in love with - the Clara of "Asylum of the Daleks" and "The Snowmen". She's not done yet. I'm really looking forward to seeing where the series takes her. 

Cheers!


----------



## JustinAlexander (Apr 21, 2013)

Re: "Hide".

Probably the best episode of Series 7 so far. Unfortunately, that's a low bar to clear at this point and the episode suffers from the same problem we've seen in virtually every other script this season: Strong concept, intriguing opening, fantastic production values... and an ending that falls flat and doesn't make much sense.

You can pinpoint the moment where the episode goes off the rails pretty much precisely to the moment that the cloister bell sounds. (Well, technically to the moment when the Doctor takes off the harness.) Up until that point they'd established a set of rules and stuck to them. (Although if you look back at certain points they don't make a lot of sense.) After that point, however, they start breaking the rules they've established and everyone starts yelling very loudly in the hope that you won't notice that the writer didn't actually have an ending.


----------



## Sentro (Apr 21, 2013)

damn... i didn't realise there where new doctor who episodes... feeling stupid... but then... no i've got something to watch


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 21, 2013)

I thought hide was an excellent episode. Really not having the problems with this season some of the other poster's have expressed.


----------



## Morrus (Apr 21, 2013)

I very much enjoyed this week's and last week's episodes.  Dougray Scott was awesome, too; and the mansion and the 70s England look and feel was absolutely perfect.  Kudos to the set dressers and costume folks!


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## Elodan (Apr 21, 2013)

Anyone have a good explanation as to why originally the Tardis couldn't go into the pocket universe without loosing all its power but could suddenly make not one, but two trips into the pocket universe?  I'm guessing the empath had something to do with it.

Also, doesn't the Tardis have inertial dampeners some some such?  Not sure why Clara had to hand on like that.

Liked last week's episode better but this one was pretty good.


----------



## Morrus (Apr 21, 2013)

Elodan said:


> Anyone have a good explanation as to why originally the Tardis couldn't go into the pocket universe without loosing all its power but could suddenly make not one, but two trips into the pocket universe?




It could go in for a few seconds before being drained of power. 



> Also, doesn't the Tardis have inertial dampeners some some such?  Not sure why Clara had to hand on like that.




Hmm? They get rocked about in it all the time.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 21, 2013)

Elodan said:


> Anyone have a good explanation as to why originally the Tardis couldn't go into the pocket universe without loosing all its power but could suddenly make not one, but two trips into the pocket universe?  I'm guessing the empath had something to do with it.
> .




My reading of it was they never said it couldn't go in, just that it was too risky for the reason Morrus stated. But clara went ahead in anway to save the doctor and made it out in time.


----------



## sabrinathecat (Apr 21, 2013)

"The Soul" was ripped from the tardis the first time. (???)
don't know about the second.
Though, the E-Space trilogy had no problems with such things. Of course, that was back when Logopolis was functioning, and the TimeLords were around.

I'd like to know why "the borders between that reality and this must be closed forever" really seems to mean "until we need to bring Rose back."


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 21, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> "The Soul" was ripped from the tardis the first time. (???)
> don't know about the second.
> Though, the E-Space trilogy had no problems with such things. Of course, that was back when Logopolis was functioning, and the TimeLords were around.
> 
> I'd like to know why "the borders between that reality and this must be closed forever" really seems to mean "until we need to bring Rose back."




The next episode is Journey to the Center of the Tardis so it is possible it suffered some problems as a result of the two trips to the pocket dimension.


----------



## Nellisir (Apr 21, 2013)

I agree that this was the strongest episode; also that that's a pretty low bar.  So one weird alien creature somehow (?) gets stuck in the mansion?  What does time travel have to do with the pocket dimension?  How did the creature get there?  What are they going to do with two alien creatures?  What are they going to do with a time traveller? 

Less snarky questions: Is it safe to say that "family", or possibly "granddaughters" is this season's secret theme? Is it just me, or does anyone else keep getting 1980's/Tom Baker flashbacks during these last few episodes?


----------



## Morrus (Apr 22, 2013)

So nobody's. mentioned this yet - but that stuff about the TARDIS umbrella stand was clearly important. Why couldn't he remember where it was? Or was he imagining he was Sylvester McCoy for a bit? Plus the Clara mystery. The Doctor's name. Something's going on. Plus I feel he's staring to get darker, and they're calling out theses like "we're all just ghosts to you" and "he has ice in his heart" a lot. TARDIS doesn't like Clara. 50th anniversary ep approaching.

Any ideas yet?


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 22, 2013)

Morrus said:


> So nobody's. mentioned this yet - but that stuff about the TARDIS umbrella stand was clearly important. Why couldn't he remember where it was? Or was he imagining he was Sylvester McCoy for a bit? Plus the Clara mystery. The Doctor's name. Something's going on. Plus I feel he's staring to get darker, and they're calling out theses like "we're all just ghosts to you" and "he has ice in his heart" a lot. TARDIS doesn't like Clara. 50th anniversary ep approaching.
> 
> Any ideas yet?




I agree the umbrella thing was important. My first thought is maybe it had something with him giving his memories to the god in Rings of Akhaten, but not sure. 

He has been growing darker. The ice comment was odd. Seems like there is moreto that than just pointing out the doctor has a dark side. Isnt the doctor supposed to have an evil quasi regeneration between the 12th and 13th? Perhaps its part of a set-up for the next doctor's arc.

on the Tardis not liking Clara, that is getting hard not to ignore, but maybe that happens with all companions and clara is just more attuned to it than others (the whole 'like a cat' thing). Or the tardis senses something about her that doesnt bode well for the doctor. Still hoping she is CAL, but that is looking like less of a possibility as the series progresses.


----------



## Tonguez (Apr 22, 2013)

Nellisir said:


> I agree that this was the strongest episode; also that that's a pretty low bar.  So one weird alien creature somehow (?) gets stuck in the mansion?  What does time travel have to do with the pocket dimension?  How did the creature get there?  What are they going to do with two alien creatures?  What are they going to do with a time traveller?




Okay I did like the episode, it was atmospheric and Professor Alec Palmer was interesting (I hope to meet him again). I liked the reference to Military Intelligence and the examination of 'companion relationships' provided by Professor Palmer and his 'assistant'.

But I was really hoping that the monster was some future scientist who followed Hila Tocarien through the timestream and got warped by it degenerating over time but finally to be reunited with his true love (Hila) by the Doctor. Instead we get another wasted monster who adds nothing to the story (unless it is going to get reused later).



> Less snarky questions: Is it safe to say that "family", or possibly "granddaughters" is this season's secret theme? Is it just me, or does anyone else keep getting 1980's/Tom Baker flashbacks during these last few episodes?




The Military Intelligence thing made me think of Jon Pertwee and UNIT

It's going to be interesting to see how Clara and the Tardis interact next week (NB has the Tardis used holograms to communicate before?)

Also on the hologram one theory is that Clara is the TARDIS personified (the hologram is thus a hint at this). The dislike of the TARDIS for Clara might indicate a degree of jealous rivalry for the Doctors affections, since Clara is the only thing that could rival the TARDIS herself...lol


----------



## RangerWickett (Apr 22, 2013)

The monster was wonderfully done. Especially when, after jittering around being scary, it just pops up beside the doctor and is actually pretty hideous. It's so common for the big reveal of a monster to fall flat, but since they end up making the critter sympathetic, it's okay that it's not actually scary. But it's still nasty and great.

I do think they need to pay a smidge more attention to following whatever rules they set up.


----------



## Tonguez (Apr 22, 2013)

RangerWickett said:


> The monster was wonderfully done. Especially when, after jittering around being scary, it just pops up beside the doctor and is actually pretty hideous. It's so common for the big reveal of a monster to fall flat, but since they end up making the critter sympathetic, it's okay that it's not actually scary. But it's still nasty and great.
> 
> I do think they need to pay a smidge more attention to following whatever rules they set up.




yeah thats the sad part, the monster design was great, but what did it add to the story? Hila Tocarien lost in time provided enough of a mystery for the Doctor to solve without there being something behind her. Especially when that actually wasn't even relevant to her story and had no real story of it own. The last bit 'every monster needs it's companion' seemed to be tacked on


----------



## Nellisir (Apr 22, 2013)

Tonguez said:


> It's going to be interesting to see how Clara and the Tardis interact next week (NB has the Tardis used holograms to communicate before?)
> 
> Also on the hologram one theory is that Clara is the TARDIS personified (the hologram is thus a hint at this). The dislike of the TARDIS for Clara might indicate a degree of jealous rivalry for the Doctors affections, since Clara is the only thing that could rival the TARDIS herself...lol




What did the TARDIS say to Clara about it's selection of forms?  "The person you most esteem?"  That would certainly say something about Clara.


----------



## Morrus (Apr 22, 2013)

Nellisir said:


> What did the TARDIS say to Clara about it's selection of forms?  "The person you most esteem?"  That would certainly say something about Clara.




Something like that; it was meant as an insult.  Clara responded by muttering "I knew she was a cow", referring to the TARDIS.  It was just a little exchange of mutual dislike.


----------



## Herschel (Apr 22, 2013)

Tonguez said:


> yeah thats the sad part, the monster design was great, but what did it add to the story? Hila Tocarien lost in time provided enough of a mystery for the Doctor to solve without there being something behind her. Especially when that actually wasn't even relevant to her story and had no real story of it own. The last bit 'every monster needs it's companion' seemed to be tacked on





I like that the "monster" turned out to not actually be a monster. It was creepy and couldn't communicate properly but the theme of the show was things you're scared of may not actually be scary once you understand them. (the "ghost", the "monster" the relationship, etc.)

I'm curious to see what happens when River and Clara meet. There's almost no way Clara could be CAL. About the only way to pull that off would be if Matt's Doctor were somehow a product of the Library's mainframe and with the 50th David Tennant comes from "reality" and is "still" the Doctor, taking over the lead role once again.


----------



## Nellisir (Apr 22, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Something like that; it was meant as an insult.  Clara responded by muttering "I knew she was a cow", referring to the TARDIS.  It was just a little exchange of mutual dislike.



Yeah, but _why_ does the TARDIS so dislike Clara?  I've never noticed the TARDIS taking that active a role. I'd assume there's a reason, and that little dig ties into it.


----------



## Morrus (Apr 22, 2013)

Nellisir said:


> Yeah, but _why_ does the TARDIS so dislike Clara?  I've never noticed the TARDIS taking that active a role. I'd assume there's a reason, and that little dig ties into it.




Yeah, that's been one of the themes in recent episodes. We'll find out eventually!


----------



## Mallus (Apr 22, 2013)

Tonguez said:


> yeah thats the sad part, the monster design was great, but what did it add to the story? Hila Tocarien lost in time provided enough of a mystery for the Doctor to solve without there being something behind her.



That's a good question -- let me take a crack at it.

The monster in the set-up allowed for the creepy thing scuttling around the mansion throughout the episode, in a addition to Hila-as-a-ghostly-apparition. It was a fright/tension builder. 

From a more meta standpoint, it reinforces the idea the situation was only a mystery from a linear/normal time perspective, ie it comments on the "mystery" of Clara. We see the ghost *and* the monster, we don't initially know what either is, gradually this is revealed, and then the initial revelation turns out to be incomplete and gets clarified further.  

It's a commentary/analogue to Clara's arc (or at least that's what I believe right now...).  

Yeah, it was rushed, and felt a bit tacked on, but that's a byproduct of the compressed nature of the storytelling -- Slate's got a great article on the last episode which talks about that:  http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/tv_club/features/2013/doctor_who_season_7_recaps/week_4/doctor_who_hide_recap_why_does_doctor_who_love_humans.html

edit: Hide gets 5 out of 5 from me. A big improvement over last week, which managed to bore me even though it was chock-full of 80s references and David Warner. No mean feat! I blame on the direction -- Gatiss isn't my favorite writer (I prefer his acting) but the script was pretty sound.


----------



## Nellisir (Apr 22, 2013)

Nellisir said:


> Yeah, but _why_ does the TARDIS so dislike Clara?  I've never noticed the TARDIS taking that active a role. I'd assume there's a reason, and that little dig ties into it.



Well, crap.  I was trying to merge these "threads" - the Doctor's family, Clara's reappearance, her kissing 11 on the lips, and the TARDIS's dislike/jealousy, and all I can come up with is the Doctor's (first) wife.


----------



## Morrus (Apr 22, 2013)

Nellisir said:


> Well, crap.  I was trying to merge these "threads" - the Doctor's family, Clara's reappearance, her kissing 11 on the lips, and the TARDIS's dislike/jealousy, and all I can come up with is the Doctor's (first) wife.




I dunno.  She's definitely human.  And how does her dying twice fit into that?  No, I think it's something weirder than that.


----------



## Nellisir (Apr 22, 2013)

Morrus said:


> I dunno.  She's definitely human.  And how does her dying twice fit into that?  No, I think it's something weirder than that.



Yeah, I don't pretend to know how that would work.  Although who says the Doctor's first wife was a Time Lord?  I dunno.


----------



## Morrus (Apr 22, 2013)

Nellisir said:


> Yeah, I don't pretend to know how that would work.  Although who says the Doctor's first wife was a Time Lord?  I dunno.




True; though Susan is (wherever she


----------



## JustinAlexander (Apr 22, 2013)

Elodan said:


> Anyone have a good explanation as to why originally the Tardis couldn't go into the pocket universe without loosing all its power but could suddenly make not one, but two trips into the pocket universe?




I'm afraid the explanation is really bad writing.



Morrus said:


> "he has ice in his heart"




Well, the Great Intelligence has a history of using ice-based stuff. There might be something actually wrong with the Doctor.


----------



## Mallus (Apr 22, 2013)

JustinAlexander said:


> I'm afraid the explanation is really bad writing.



So risky maneuvers that turn out to be not-so-risky when the protagonists try them is a sign of bad writing? I have to ask: do you even *like* genre fiction (err, television)? 

The odds Han Solo will successfully navigate the asteroid field are actually 1 in 1, despite what C3PO calculated. Terry Pratchett also had a few (really smart & funny) things to say about this...


----------



## Herschel (Apr 22, 2013)

There's a reason the TARDIS didn't "land" in the pocket dimension, they had to grab on as it passed as it could only be there a few seconds.


----------



## Bagpuss (Apr 22, 2013)

Elodan said:


> Also, doesn't the Tardis have inertial dampeners some some such?  Not sure why Clara had to hand on like that.




So did the Enterprise but when things get hairy they never seem to keep up.


----------



## Bagpuss (Apr 22, 2013)

Tonguez said:


> It's going to be interesting to see how Clara and the Tardis interact next week (NB has the Tardis used holograms to communicate before?)




In *Let's Kill Hitler* where the Doctor is pisoned and too weak to reach the console he activates the TARDIS voice interface and it appears as several characters all of which the Doctor feels guilt over until it eventually settles on Amelia the young Amy Pond.


----------



## JustinAlexander (Apr 22, 2013)

Mallus said:


> The odds Han Solo will successfully navigate the asteroid field are actually 1 in 1, despite what C3PO calculated.




That's not the same thing.

If we want to talk about an applicable example from _Star Wars_, let's consider the end of the first movie: It establishes a specific rule ("the only way to destroy this thing is to fire a photon torpedo into the exhaust port") and then structures the end of the film around it.

Now, let's imagine that instead of the movie we actually saw Lucas had delivered a different movie: Luke's attack run fails. Oh no! C3-PO turns to Princess Leia and says, "You have to help him you stupid cow!" And then Princess Leia says, "Wait!" She types furiously for a few seconds and then the Death Star blows up. Leia smiles, "I just suddenly realized I could reverse the polarity of the shield generators!"

Ta-da!

That's  writing. And it's still not as bad as the ending in "Hide", because at least it doesn't explicitly rule out reversing the polarity of the shield generators (not once, but twice) only to present that as the solution (not once, but twice) without any justification for how the situation has changed beyond Clara calling the TARDIS a cow.

The equivalent to the "Han Solo in the asteroid field" moment would have been something like:

Doctor: We'll use the TARDIS to go pick her up!
Clara: Is that dangerous? 
Doctor: Well... if we stay there longer than 10 seconds the TARDIS might blow up. But I'm pretty sure if we'll be fine... I mean, we'll be fine. I'm sure we'll be fine. Fine-ish.
Clara: Next time, just say "no".

It's a dialogue that just says "this will be really dangerous, so appreciate how nifty I am".

Having re-skimmed the episode, I think the intention may have been that the psychic's efforts somehow made it possible for the TARDIS to go to the pocket dimension and safely return. But if that's the case, the writer completely failed to deliver it in a coherent fashion.


----------



## Mallus (Apr 22, 2013)

JustinAlexander said:


> That's not the same thing.



I think you missed something when you watched Hide. But, to be fair, maybe I did !



> It establishes a specific rule...



What rule are you referring to? 

In Hide, it's clearly stated the TARDIS can easily *enter* the collapsing magic ghost pocket universe, but it runs the risk of having it's power source drained (and thus getting trapped). It's portrayed as risky, and the Doctor opts to use the psychic lady to create a portal.

(I suspect this was meant as characterization of the Doctor: he chooses to place an innocent young woman under duress rather than risk his TARDIS -- making him a bit like the "sliver of ice in his heart" kind of guy the psychic lady warned Clara about, also a bit more like Moffat's Holmes, despite the superficial frantic kid-show host element to Smith's Doctor). 

Are we not talking about the same thing? 



> Having re-skimmed the episode, I think the intention may have been that the psychic's efforts somehow made it possible for the TARDIS to go to the pocket dimension and safely return. But if that's the case, the writer completely failed to deliver it in a coherent fashion.



I think the intention was for the TARDIS-trip into the pocket universe to be risky. Because that's what the episode _said_. At no point was it stated to be _impossible_, so no further explanation of how it occurred was required.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 22, 2013)

I have to agree with mallus on this one. I could have missed something, but didn't see any issue with the Tardis going into the pocket dimension the way t dif.


----------



## Bagpuss (Apr 22, 2013)

Mallus said:


> . It's portrayed as risky, and the Doctor opts to use the psychic lady to create a portal.
> 
> (I suspect this was meant as characterization of the Doctor: he chooses to place an innocent young woman under duress rather than risk his TARDIS -- making him a bit like the "sliver of ice in his heart" kind of guy the psychic lady warned Clara about, also a bit more like Moffat's Holmes, despite the superficial frantic kid-show host element to Smith's Doctor).




They have previously raised the point on a number of occasions that the Doctor frequently gets others to do the dirty work or risk there lives for him.


----------



## Nellisir (Apr 22, 2013)

JustinAlexander said:


> Having re-skimmed the episode, I think the intention may have been that the psychic's efforts somehow made it possible for the TARDIS to go to the pocket dimension and safely return. But if that's the case, the writer completely failed to deliver it in a coherent fashion.



I think that's complicating it.  I thought it boiled down to "more than 4 seconds, powerless; more than 10 seconds, dead."  Ergo, they were there less than 4 seconds.  They could make repeat trips because they didn't stay more than 4 seconds each time.


----------



## Morrus (Apr 22, 2013)

JustinAlexander said:


> That's not the same thing.
> 
> If we want to talk about an applicable example from _Star Wars_, let's consider the end of the first movie: It establishes a specific rule ("the only way to destroy this thing is to fire a photon torpedo into the exhaust port") and then structures the end of the film around it.
> 
> ...




That's a long post; but you basically missed the explanation. It was there and stated clearly.

The Doctor said the TARDIS could go in for a few seconds before it died. It went in for a few seconds and got out before it died (thus the not landing and hanging on the outside).

That's it. It was really simple.


----------



## MerricB (Apr 23, 2013)

Morrus said:


> I dunno.  She's definitely human.  And how does her dying twice fit into that?  No, I think it's something weirder than that.




My basic impression is whatever "splits" Clara, it happens in the future. The Great Intelligence will probably be involved. And the TARDIS, having knowledge of the future (as established in The Doctor's Wife) sees it and wants to stop it - probably to protect the Doctor.

Cheers!


----------



## JustinAlexander (Apr 23, 2013)

Mallus said:


> What rule are you referring to?
> 
> In Hide, it's clearly stated the TARDIS can easily *enter* the collapsing magic ghost pocket universe, but it runs the risk of having it's power source drained (and thus getting trapped). It's portrayed as risky, and the Doctor opts to use the psychic lady to create a portal.




It's really, really simple. When you have a conversation like this:

"Why can't we do X to solve the problem?"
"We can't do X because Y will happen."

You can't just turn around five minutes later, do X, and have the only justification be "Clara insulted the TARDIS". It's a textbook example of bad writing. Doing it again five minutes later only makes it worse. 

Meanwhile, throughout both these sequences, you have the psychic doing _something_. What, exactly? Nothing of relevance, apparently. Which might be acceptable the first time, but then the Doctor has her do it again despite it having no apparent impact on anything. More bad writing. (Even if we ignore the fact that the TARDIS was there for longer than 10 seconds.)

Okay, let's assume that Clara just didn't know that the psychic was going to pull it together so the second rescue effort was superfluous. But since we already know that the psychic actually _can_ pull people out of the pocket dimension, why put the TARDIS at risk a second time? It doesn't make any sense within the rules of the universe as they've established them in the episode.

The entire ending is a mess.

The sad thing is that it wouldn't be particularly difficult to fix it. For example, instead of having the rationale for the TARDIS not being able to help be "in four seconds I'd be stranded, in ten seconds I'd be dead" just cut the second part of that sentence: The TARDIS says, "In four seconds I'd be stranded." And then have Clara says, "But not if you followed a psychic beacon." And, ta-da, you'd have an ending that worked.

Or the TARDIS is always part of the solution. Or you just skip the whole TARDIS bit. Or any number of other possibilities.

Here's one which would have been thematically interesting: The psychic can pull her descendant out because of their connection; they're family. But once she leaves, the connection snaps shut because the connection doesn't exist any more. Oh crap. How do we get the Doctor out? Well, we need someone with a deep connection to him. Oh, hey. The TARDIS! (And then the same logic applies when you use the monster in the house to retrieve the other monster.)

I'm honestly amazed at the number of people trying to defend a blatant deus ex technobabble here.


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## Bagpuss (Apr 23, 2013)

Yeah the mentioning of a psychic beacon would have improved it. Although I don't think Clara should have mentioned it, she wouldn't have known. I would have preferred a scene where the Doctor gets mad at Clara for coming to rescue him.

Then talking to the TARDIS saying something, a long the lines of you knew "you could follow the psychic  beacon out again, why didn't I think of that? Clever old girl!"


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## Morrus (Apr 23, 2013)

JustinAlexander said:


> It's really, really simple. When you have a conversation like this:
> 
> "Why can't we do X to solve the problem?"
> "We can't do X because Y will happen."
> ...




You're missing the part where that didn't happen. At the risk of souding repetitive, the Doctor said the TARDIS could go in for a few seconds before it died. It went in for a few seconds and got out before it died (thus the not landing and hanging on the outside).


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## sabrinathecat (Apr 23, 2013)

I think the point is more that when the show says something can't ever happen, and then goes and contradicts itself shortly thereafter, then the writers have just cheapened the drama of the situation. Now, the dipping toes in the water of the pocket and jumping back out again explanation might work for you. It doesn't work for everyone.
Can't say whether it will work for me or not.
I am saddened by the drastic down-turn in the quality of writing for NuWho since Moffat took over. This has been gone over before. In my opinion, Moffat has pulled a Lucas. I sincerely hope that at some point the writing and general stories will improve to where it was during series 3. Even series 2.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 23, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> I think the point is more that when the show says something can't ever happen, and then goes and contradicts itself shortly thereafter, then the writers have just cheapened the drama of the situation. 2.




But as people have been pointing out, it didnt do that. They didnt say it couldnt happen, just that it was dangerous because it could destroy the tardis inside a short period of time. The doctor didnt want to risk it, but Clara was willing to do so. 

If others don't buy the episode or hate the new episodes that is no skin off my back. I dont get why some people are so insistent others must agree the show is bad now or the writing is terrible (personally I think the writing of this episode was particularly good).


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## Bagpuss (Apr 23, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> I am saddened by the drastic down-turn in the quality of writing for NuWho since Moffat took over. This has been gone over before. In my opinion, Moffat has pulled a Lucas. I sincerely hope that at some point the writing and general stories will improve to where it was during series 3. Even series 2.




I don't put it down to Moffat I put it down to going to 45 minutes, so everything has to be rushed to fit. I also don't think there has been a drastic down-turn, just some things needed a bit more polish and explanation, which with an extra 15 minutes they could have had.


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## Morrus (Apr 23, 2013)

Bagpuss said:


> I don't put it down to Moffat I put it down to going to 45 minutes, so everything has to be rushed to fit. I also don't think there has been a drastic down-turn, just some things needed a bit more polish and explanation, which with an extra 15 minutes they could have had.




Sometimes I hate the quote function!


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## Bagpuss (Apr 23, 2013)

Why's that?


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## Nellisir (Apr 23, 2013)

JustinAlexander said:


> Meanwhile, throughout both these sequences, you have the psychic doing _something_. What, exactly? Nothing of relevance, apparently. Which might be acceptable the first time, but then the Doctor has her do it again despite it having no apparent impact on anything. More bad writing. (Even if we ignore the fact that the TARDIS was there for longer than 10 seconds.)




Were we watching the same episode?  The psychic opened the portal, but couldn't keep it open long enough to get the time-traveller AND the Doctor out.  Thus the TARDIS and Clara to the rescue.  Second time around, the psychic opened the portal to drop the Doctor in and give him time to locate the monster, then the TARDIS swooped in to pick them up. Admittedly the TARDIS might've been unnecessary the second time, but at least they knew it would work that time.

So if opening the portal twice (or three times, I think), dropping the Doctor through twice, and bringing the time-traveller back is "nothing of relevance", then I guess we were watching different episodes..


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## lin_fusan (Apr 23, 2013)

I have to admit that I was confused by the sequence in question. The ending was very compressed with a lot of visual and textual information, and I heard in paraphrase, "This terrible thing will happen if we enter the pocket dimension."

And then Clara entered the pocket dimension and the terrible thing did not happen. To have to back up and take apart the dialogue to figure out what the characters meant means that somewhere I did not get the information to understand what the heck was going on. 

I loved every other part of the episode up to rescue. After that, there were just too many conceptual twists crammed together for me to grok easily.


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## Morrus (Apr 23, 2013)

lin_fusan said:


> I have to admit that I was confused by the sequence in question. The ending was very compressed with a lot of visual and textual information, and I heard in paraphrase, "This terrible thing will happen if we enter the pocket dimension."
> 
> And then Clara entered the pocket dimension and the terrible thing did not happen. To have to back up and take apart the dialogue to figure out what the characters meant means that somewhere I did not get the information to understand what the heck was going on.




The only explanation I can think of is that it's maybe a dialect thing - you're in the US?  Maybe you guys found it a bit harder to catch what they were saying (they do speak fast), but it was pretty clear to me. It was very explicit that it was a "we can go in for only a few seconds" thing, and very explicity _not _a "we can't go in at all" thing.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 23, 2013)

Morrus said:


> The only explanation I can think of is that it's maybe a dialect thing - you're in the US?  Maybe you guys found it a bit harder to catch what they were saying (they do speak fast), but it was pretty clear to me. It was very explicit that it was a "we can go in for only a few seconds" thing, and very explicity _not _a "we can't go in at all" thing.




I am from the US, and while I do sometimes find it difficult to catch certain phrases or understand some slang terms (snog box went over my head), this one was pretty clear to me on the first viewing. Didn't cause any confusion for me at all.


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## sabrinathecat (Apr 23, 2013)

I am not insisting that everyone agree with me. I am practicing one of the fundamental traditions of the culture of the country in which I reside: Disagreeing. I am not going along with the crowd.
Additionally, my comment on "can't happen" was a more broad stroke for the show as a whole, not the specific episode.
If the story needs more time, make it a 2-parter. If you do not have enough story for the whole episode, take it away, and bring it back when you do, rather than stuffing it with padding.
Moffat is in charge. He wrote 6 of the best stories in the first 4 series. Arguably 2 of the best Who stories period. He is capable of better than he is currently delivering. That is what I would like to see.


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## Mallus (Apr 23, 2013)

JustinAlexander said:


> "Why can't we do X to solve the problem?"
> "We can't do X because Y will happen."



You left out "... Y will happen _if the TARDIS stays in the pocket universe too long_".

It's an important detail. You shouldn't leave it out. 



> You can't just turn around five minutes later, do X, and have the only justification be "Clara insulted the TARDIS"



Clara insulting the TARDIS had nothing to do with it. That's not offered as a justification for anything. 



> Meanwhile, throughout both these sequences, you have the psychic doing _something_. What, exactly? Nothing of relevance, apparently.



She opens a portal to the pocket universe. She does this 3 times during the episode (see below, I've labelled them P1, P2, and P3). 



> (Even if we ignore the fact that the TARDIS was there for longer than 10 seconds.)



Yes, we should ignore that. If your approach to film/television criticism involves the use of a stopwatch -- well, you should find another approach. 



> Okay, let's assume that Clara just didn't know that the psychic was going to pull it together so the second rescue effort was superfluous.



We don't need to assume that. *Because that's exactly what happens in the episode*. The sequence of events was this:

Emma Grayling opens a portal (P1) to the pocket universe --> the Doctor goes through --> Doctor finds the Hila Tukurian and sends her back --> Grayling can't maintain the portal --> portal closes --> the Doctor is trapped. 

Cut back to the mansion, where Palmer comforts Grayling, saying basically, "you've done enough, we rescued one" and Clara saying "we have to rescue the Doctor". At this point Clara runs off -- back to the TARDIS. Without explaining what she intends to do. 

Next we see *two simultaneous rescue attempts* -- each without the other knowing. Clara in the TARDIS (T1) and Grayling, after getting her... act... together, re-opening the portal (P2). Clara's attempt succeeds. 



> But since we already know that the psychic actually _can_ pull people out of the pocket dimension, why put the TARDIS at risk a second time? It doesn't make any sense within the rules of the universe as they've established them in the episode.



We know Grayling can open a portal. Also that doing so is extremely stressful/difficult/she can't do it for long.

OK, so the coda/final scenes: the Doctor realizes there are two "monsters", one in the mansion and one trapped in pocket universe. He asks Grayling for a "favor", ie opening a portal (P3). 

The Doctor goes through --> finds the other "monster" --> the TARDIS enters the pocket universe (T2) --> picks up the Doctor + monster.

The episode doesn't spell out why the Doctor asked Grayling to open the final portal (P3), but the answer should be obvious: to minimize the amount of time the TARDIS spends in the pocket universe, ie just to pick up, not drop off/pick up. It's not bad writing. It's the writer trusting the audience (or at least trusting the audience isn't out to get him). In fact, it's a very "gamer" solution. "Hey, can't we just have the psychic NPC open the portal? That'll save the TARDIS some exposure-to-the-pocket-universe time". 

(whew... I feel like I just close captioned the episode for the interpretively-impaired).  



> I'm honestly amazed at the number of people trying to defend a blatant deus ex technobabble here.



The funny thing is there's no technobabble involved in the resolution. None. No adjusting the chroniton-phase modulation or even reversing the polarity of the neutron flow. They simply follow the "rules" established during the episode. Hell, there's barely a line of dialog during final scene, let alone any technobabble.

And because this post hasn't gone on long enough: any critique of the writing in Hide that doesn't favorably mention the real heart of the episode --ie, where it stops being a period ghost story and becomes a brief history of the Earth's whole history-- and the lovely, affecting lines given to Clara (and the Doctor's fumbling response) is lacking in the worthwhile criticism department!


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## Nellisir (Apr 23, 2013)

Bedrockgames said:


> I am from the US, and while I do sometimes find it difficult to catch certain phrases or understand some slang terms (snog box went over my head), this one was pretty clear to me on the first viewing. Didn't cause any confusion for me at all.



Sometimes I'm not 100% on what they said, but I get almost all the idioms and slang. I thought snog box was hilarious.


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## sabrinathecat (Apr 23, 2013)

If you have to go to that much length to justify something, there is lacking in the writing department. If the audience has to make that many assumptions, there is lacking in writing department.
This sounds like a politician or con-man. "If you keep talking fast enough, you can baffle them with male cattle excrement."
And there is a limit to the time stretch. If you say "two seconds", and it takes more than twice that, you've blown it. Sure, 2.5-3 seconds, no biggie. But 10? That's like the cheap old westerns where the revolver shoots 18 bullets without reloading.


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## Mallus (Apr 23, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> If you have to go to that much length to justify something, there is lacking in the writing department.



Description of what actually occurred on-screen != justification. Also, I wouldn't have had to go to such lengths if some folks had paid better attention!  



> If the audience has to make that many assumptions, there is lacking in writing department.



One assumption (and barely even that). One != many. 



> This sounds like a politician or con-man. "If you keep talking fast enough, you can baffle them with male cattle excrement."



Do you want to talk about Doctor Who, or just meander for a spell in the folksy style of Will Rogers?

(not that there's anything wrong with that)


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## Herschel (Apr 24, 2013)

When a supposed "critical eye" is actually blindness....


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## MarkB (Apr 25, 2013)

I think the importance of the psychic link in the TARDIS trips is being underestimated. Note that, while the TARDIS makes its own way into the pocket universe, when it emerges it materialises within the portal that the psychic link was opening.

My interpretation was that the TARDIS might well have been unable to escape the pocket dimension on its remaining power, but the opened portal provided an easy exit for it. There wasn't an explicit explanation of that, but it seemed obvious to me at the time.


I do feel that the story beats in the episode felt rather awkward. It seemed like it ought to have been the story of the two 'monsters' separated across the dimensions, and that it would have been a fine story of bad first impressions and eventual understanding, if only it hadn't all been crowded out by the Clara-and-Doctor stuff.

The role of the experimental time traveller was also unforgivably marginalised - this is a pioneer of human-developed time travel, and she barely even gets a few lines of dialogue. Once she's been saved, she plays no further part in the plot and is reduced to standing around awkwardly in the background while people talk over her.


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## lin_fusan (Apr 25, 2013)

MarkB, I agree completely. That's pretty much what I meant/said when I enjoyed the episode up until the rescue, and then from then on it was really clunky.


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## Tonguez (Apr 26, 2013)

MarkB said:


> I think the importance of the psychic link in the TARDIS trips is being underestimated. Note that, while the TARDIS makes its own way into the pocket universe, when it emerges it materialises within the portal that the psychic link was opening.
> 
> My interpretation was that the TARDIS might well have been unable to escape the pocket dimension on its remaining power, but the opened portal provided an easy exit for it. There wasn't an explicit explanation of that, but it seemed obvious to me at the time.
> 
> ...




Yup thats my reading of it too, the psychic link provided the TARDIS with an easy door and Hila Tocarien lost in time and the Lonely Monsters both deserved to have two separate stories not one shared 45 minute blah


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## JustinAlexander (Apr 28, 2013)

Nellisir said:


> Were we watching the same episode?  The psychic opened the portal, but couldn't keep it open long enough to get the time-traveller AND the Doctor out.  Thus the TARDIS and Clara to the rescue.  Second time around, the psychic opened the portal to drop the Doctor in and give him time to locate the monster, then the TARDIS swooped in to pick them up. Admittedly the TARDIS might've been unnecessary the second time, but at least they knew it would work that time.




Yup. That would be another explanation that might have worked in an episode that was better written: The TARDIS can get in-and-out fast enough because all it's doing is picking up the Doctor (whereas if it had to drop him off, wait for him to locate the alien/Hila, and then leave it would take too long). It's got some problems (why can't the TARDIS drop him off, leave, then come back and pick him up?), but it would at least provide a functional explanation.

Unfortunately, it doesn't actually work in the episode-as-poorly-written: Before the situation is just "pick the Doctor up", we're told the TARDIS can't do it because of X. After the situation has become "just pick the Doctor up", we're told that the TARDIS can't do it for the _exact same reason_. Then Clara calls the TARDIS a cow and suddenly the reason no longer applies.



Morrus said:


> The only explanation I can think of is that it's  maybe a dialect thing - you're in the US?  Maybe you guys found it a bit  harder to catch what they were saying (they do speak fast), but it was  pretty clear to me. It was very explicit that it was a "we can go in for  only a few seconds" thing, and very explicity _not _a "we can't go in at all" thing.




I understood the line of dialogue. It's still bad writing.



MarkB said:


> I think the importance of the psychic link in the  TARDIS trips is being underestimated. Note that, while the TARDIS makes  its own way into the pocket universe, when it emerges it materialises  within the portal that the psychic link was opening.




That's my personal fan-wank.

As I mentioned before, there are a lot of explanations which would have worked within the structure of the episode with only minor changes. Which is why it's so terribly unforgivable that the episode was so poorly written as to not include any of them.



Mallus said:


> And because this post hasn't gone on long enough:  any critique of the writing in Hide that doesn't favorably mention the  real heart of the episode --ie, where it stops being a period ghost  story and becomes a brief history of the Earth's whole history-- and the  lovely, affecting lines given to Clara (and the Doctor's fumbling  response) is lacking in the worthwhile criticism department!




It's a decent couple of lines, but it's not explored in any meaningful depth. It's also flawed by the fact that the entire sequence is another example of the episode breaking its own rules: You can only photograph the ghost if the psychic is present. The Doctor leaves the psychic behind and continues photographing the ghost.

Cut the line that establishes that rule. Or bring the psychic with. Or have the doctor apply a filter to the camera. (The filter could even be the blue gemstone that's used as part of the seance.)

This is the most frustrating thing about the bad writing this season: Most of it would be really trivial to fix. There's simply no excuse for the scripts to be this sloppy or the conclusion to be this weak.


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## JustinAlexander (Apr 28, 2013)

Re: "Journey to the Center of the TARDIS".

Nice to see a conclusion that actually makes sense and isn't just pulled out of a hat as a deus ex machina. And there are a lot of really nice details (like hearing Susan explain the TARDIS acronym). On the other hand, some of the individual elements in the episode felt rather forced ("THE HISTORY OF THE TIME WAR") and there are a couple of significant holes, starting with the Doctor forcing the salvage team to help him but then never actually expecting them to do anything or needing them in any way.

There's also some incredibly disjointed editing in here combined with some poor directorial choices: Clara running away from an explosion and then the explosion simply disappearing. Clara running away from a monster but really just moseying while peeking into various TARDIS rooms and giggling. The Doctor running past someone who needs to be saved, leaving it so that only the brother can save him. Et cetera. The visual handling of the ash-creatures in the first half of the episode was also very derivative of last week's monster-of-the-week.

The key sequence in the Eye of Harmony is also inexplicably flawed: First, the poor directorial decision of having the Doctor run past the "android" brother. Second, in a scenario where "we can only stay for a minute" you have the Doctor stop halfway across the catwalk in order to casually discuss the thing that's killing them. (What?) Third, "as long as we interrupt the timeline this can't happen" doesn't make any sense. Yes, you can make it so that they don't get joined at the shoulders when they burn. But that doesn't mean that you've negated the actual physical process of burning up.

Also: You can't have the Doctor say, "If you help me get her out, you get the machine. (...) Right behind those doors is the salvage of a lifetime." And then later say, "Salvage of a lifetime. You meant the ship. I meant Clara." That doesn't actually track. Either you were offering them the TARDIS as a fee (which makes no sense) or you're referring to Clara as a machine and offering her as the fee (which also makes no sense).


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## MarkB (Apr 28, 2013)

One thing I've always respected about Doctor Who is that, despite being a genre show and having perhaps the greatest level of opportunity in the form of the TARDIS, the series has only very rarely used the Big Red Reset Button method of plot resolution. I was not impressed to see it used here.

Whilst I did like the occasional references to previously-mentioned TARDIS areas, I'd have loved to see a little more - stumbling into a length of Davison-era TARDIS corridor, or finding the old Tertiary Console Room from the Baker era.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 28, 2013)

Loved this episode. Found the tardis zombies genuinely scary, and even more so when you found out what they really were. Was expecting to be dissapointed by Journey to the Centre of the Tardis but was pleasantly surprised.


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## Morrus (Apr 28, 2013)

A sun in a room in the TARDIS! That was awesome. And that's one BIG room!

Lots of teasing of the "name of the Doctor" thing. Pleasepleaseplease be good!


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## Nagol (Apr 28, 2013)

Morrus said:


> A sun in a room in the TARDIS! That was awesome. And that's one BIG room!
> 
> Lots of teasing of the "name of the Doctor" thing. Pleasepleaseplease be good!




I vaguely recall a Tom Baker era episode.  The Doctor runs into another Time Lord on Earth who went to school with him.  He calls the Doctor a familiar name and the Doctor coolly corrects him to use "Doctor".

Anyone else recall it?


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## jonesy (Apr 28, 2013)

Nagol said:


> I vaguely recall a Tom Baker era episode.  The Doctor runs into another Time Lord on Earth who went to school with him.  He calls the Doctor a familiar name and the Doctor coolly corrects him to use "Doctor".
> 
> Anyone else recall it?



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5Y2anevL2o

"Theta Sigma". Could be just the initials. Or a nickname. Or something else entirely.


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## Krug (Apr 28, 2013)

Felt this episode was rather meh, what with the space version of Sanford and Sons. So the Android brother didn't realise he was human? Didn't he have to poop and so on? 

The zombies also looked like they were wearing bad latex suits, and the whole time-travel thing was just another excuse for the Doctor, Clara and the salvagers to run all over the place looking busy. 

Biggest upside was seeing the inside of the Tardis and Clara in that nice dress, but this season has been rather forgettable so far.


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## Grumpy RPG Reviews (Apr 28, 2013)

What is a really dorky name?


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## Nellisir (Apr 28, 2013)

Still with the family theme, I see.


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## JediSoth (Apr 29, 2013)

Krug said:


> Felt this episode was rather meh, what with the space version of Sanford and Sons. So the Android brother didn't realise he was human? Didn't he have to poop and so on?
> 
> The zombies also looked like they were wearing bad latex suits, and the whole time-travel thing was just another excuse for the Doctor, Clara and the salvagers to run all over the place looking busy.
> 
> Biggest upside was seeing the inside of the Tardis and Clara in that nice dress, but this season has been rather forgettable so far.




The other brothers probably told Tricky that having to go to the bathroom was part of an emulation program to make him appear more human. But yeah, that's a plot hole for sure.


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## Herschel (Apr 29, 2013)

This was a tough one for me. I rather enjoyed Clara searching/exploring the Tardis ("Now you're just showing off") but the end felt rushed again to me. Can American TV ruin everything? This one was better for "short attention span theater" as if you weren't paying close attention you didn't miss much fine detail/correlation I felt, but the sun in the TARDIS was rather awesome. I also liked the record of the Time War, but I doubt we'll ever get many details from it. Still, a season with McGann in the Time War would rock mightily if done well.


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## Morrus (Apr 29, 2013)

I've seen a lot of people complain about the Big Friendly Button around the web in a manner which indicates to me they didn't follow the plot.  I guess when a lot of people say that, it's a problem.  

Did anyone else struggle with that?  

The button is the remote control for the magnograb. We see it at the beginning rolling into the TARDIS for some mysterious reason, Clara picks it up, it's hot and has "Big Friendly Button" carved into it which scars her hand in the same way.  Then the Doctor meets the salvage guys and confiscates their remote control.  

At the end, the Doctor sees the scar, goes back in time, carves "Big Friendly Button" into the remote control with his sonic screwdriver and throws it into the console room, where Clara picks it up.  This time, though, the Doctor grabs it and uses it to deactivate the magnograb so that the events of the episode never take place.


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## Mallus (Apr 29, 2013)

Morrus said:


> This time, though, the Doctor grabs it and uses it to deactivate the magnograb so that the events of the episode never take place.



It was like the ST:TNG episode "Yesterday's Enterprise", with the button burn message replacing Guinan's timeline-alteration sense tingling. 

I liked Journey to the Center of the TARDIS well enough. But I couldn't shake the idea the Doctor invited the Salvage Brothers along mainly to fix their relationship --which he had no idea was in need of fixing--- making him less a time-traveling space wizard therapist and more of a tripe-y pop-culture angel (cf. American trash TV like Touched By An Angel, Highway to Heaven). Or an acausal Mr. Roarke from Fantasy Island. 

I also couldn't shake the idea Tricky should have been played by Tricky, with Christiansands playing over the opening spaceship pan.


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## Richards (Apr 29, 2013)

So if the Doctor was the only surviving Time Lord to have made it through the Time War intact (and then later, we find out, the Master survived as well by going through a Chameleon Arch and hiding as a human), just who exactly wrote "The History of the Time War" that Clara found in the Doctor's library?  The Doctor seems the likely candidate, but then who did he write it for?  And why would he have mentioned his real name in it if he doesn't want anyone knowing what it is?

I'm psyched about Diana Rigg being in the next episode.

Johnathan


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## jonesy (Apr 29, 2013)

Clara wrote it when she was much older and had herself been through the war. She is actually the mother of the Master.


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## MarkB (Apr 29, 2013)

Richards said:


> So if the Doctor was the only surviving Time Lord to have made it through the Time War intact (and then later, we find out, the Master survived as well by going through a Chameleon Arch and hiding as a human), just who exactly wrote "The History of the Time War" that Clara found in the Doctor's library?  The Doctor seems the likely candidate, but then who did he write it for?  And why would he have mentioned his real name in it if he doesn't want anyone knowing what it is?




Perhaps it's not the Doctor's library, so much as the TARDIS's library - and that would also be my guess as to who wrote the book. She saw the whole thing, after all.

I did feel that Clara getting a bottle of "Encyclopedia Gallifreya" dropped on her head seemed like a bit of a lost plot thread - at the time it seemed important, as though it might have info-dumped her with Time Lord knowledge. But there was no further reference to it during the episode, and the time reset would seem to have closed off any future implications.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 30, 2013)

Richards said:


> So if the Doctor was the only surviving Time Lord to have made it through the Time War intact (and then later, we find out, the Master survived as well by going through a Chameleon Arch and hiding as a human), just who exactly wrote "The History of the Time War" that Clara found in the Doctor's library?  The Doctor seems the likely candidate, but then who did he write it for?  And why would he have mentioned his real name in it if he doesn't want anyone knowing what it is?
> 
> I'm psyched about Diana Rigg being in the next episode.
> 
> Johnathan




Given how advanced timelord tech is, the book may not even require an author. It may have been written by a computer program or some feature in the TARDIS.


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## MerricB (Apr 30, 2013)

Mallus said:


> I liked Journey to the Center of the TARDIS well enough. But I couldn't shake the idea the Doctor invited the Salvage Brothers along mainly to fix their relationship --which he had no idea was in need of fixing-




Didn't have the idea at all. Instead, I thought that his main motivations were (a) you've created this problem, now fix it, and (b) let's keep an eye on you so you don't muck things up more!

Undoubtedly my favourite episode of the season so far. Particularly enjoyed the Doctor in full-on serious mode when threatening the brothers.

Cheers!


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## MerricB (Apr 30, 2013)

Richards said:


> So if the Doctor was the only surviving Time Lord to have made it through the Time War intact (and then later, we find out, the Master survived as well by going through a Chameleon Arch and hiding as a human), just who exactly wrote "The History of the Time War" that Clara found in the Doctor's library?




River Song? She is a historian/archaeologist, after all!

Cheers!


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 30, 2013)

MerricB said:


> Undoubtedly my favourite episode of the season so far. Particularly enjoyed the Doctor in full-on serious mode when threatening the brothers.
> 
> Cheers!




I have to say I am really enjoying Matt Smith as The Doctor, particularly in recent episodes.


----------



## MerricB (Apr 30, 2013)

Bedrockgames said:


> I have to say I am really enjoying Matt Smith as The Doctor, particularly in recent episodes.




The last time I watched the End of Time (which was about 6 months ago), I was no longer thinking "Oh, it's Matt Smith" after the regeneration, but now "Ah, it's the Doctor." It took me a while, but I now fully consider him to be the Doctor. 

My biggest problem with the series at moment is that there aren't enough episodes each year. Can we have a full season of 13+Christmas Special in 2014, please?

Cheers!


----------



## JustinAlexander (Apr 30, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Did anyone else struggle with that?




I was initially confused and thought that, in addition to writing the message on it, he was also using the sonic screwdriver to somehow alter the device so that it would create the time loop. (Which didn't make a lot of sense, but my expectations have been lowered.)

About 30 seconds after the episode ended (so about 3 minutes after the button was pushed), my brain finally clicked over and I said, "Oh! Got it."

One detail I'm still seeing a lot of people miss who grasp the general gist of what happened is that we actually see the Doctor alter the time loop: The first time through, he simply tosses the remote through and hopes his past self will figure it out. He doesn't. (That's the version we see at the beginning of the episode.) The second time through, he says, "I've thrown this through the rift before. I have to make sure this time. I'll take it in there myself." Which he then does, changing the original outcome.



MerricB said:


> Didn't have the idea at all. Instead, I thought  that his main motivations were (a) you've created this problem, now fix  it, and (b) let's keep an eye on you so you don't muck things up more!




The problem is that the Doctor makes a really big effort to get them to come along with him... but then he never actually needs them. And it's not just that it turns out that they're (worse than) useless, it's that the Doctor never even attempts to make use of them.



> Undoubtedly my favourite episode of the season so far.




Agreed. Unfortunately, that's mostly a commentary on how bad this season has been.


----------



## MerricB (Apr 30, 2013)

JustinAlexander said:


> The problem is that the Doctor makes a really big effort to get them to come along with him... but then he never actually needs them. And it's not just that it turns out that they're (worse than) useless, it's that the Doctor never even attempts to make use of them.




They are used twice (positively):
* The Doctor uses their hand-scanner to pull Clara out of the echo of the console room
* They knock the Time Zombies off the bridge to let Clara and the Doctor escape - although they're then caught themselves.



> Agreed. Unfortunately, that's mostly a commentary on how bad this season has been.




Given I really enjoyed Hide and The Bells of St John, that's an unwarranted statement.

This episode gave us great moments with the Doctor and Clara, explored the TARDIS, and gave more than one or two key plot points that will probably become very important later. (At least, I hope they will. If they don't, I'll be disappointed then). However, given that the Brothers have a faint recollection of what happened, and the Doctor probably more than that... and given the title of the final episode this season, what Clara saw in the library is good foreshadowing.


----------



## JustinAlexander (Apr 30, 2013)

MerricB said:


> They are used twice (positively):
> * The Doctor uses their hand-scanner to pull Clara out of the echo of the console room
> * They knock the Time Zombies off the bridge to let Clara and the Doctor escape - although they're then caught themselves.




Neither of which explains why the Doctor wanted their help in the first place. He wastes a considerable amount of time forcing them to help, but once he achieves that it turns out that all he wants them to do is follow along behind him.

Discussing the marginal assistance they provided doesn't actually fix the weak writing at the beginning of the episode if the Doctor had no way of anticipating that it would happen. And it's an even weaker argument when the problems they're "solving" are actually being created by their presence. (For example, it's a good thing that the "android" knocked the time zombie future version of himself off the balcony! If he hadn't been there then... oh wait. Then there wouldn't be a time zombie in first place.)



> Given I really enjoyed Hide and The Bells of St John, that's an unwarranted statement.




Yes, yes. My opinion is wrong because you have a different opinion. Very deep insight you've provided there.

So is it that you aren't capable of recognizing poor writing or is it that you just don't care?

*Mod Note: * And, that's enough of that.  If you cannot stop short of personal insults, you should just stop.  ~Umbran


----------



## Bagpuss (Apr 30, 2013)

Richards said:


> just who exactly wrote "The History of the Time War" that Clara found in the Doctor's library?




The TARDIS could have written it for all we know, it can manipulate the inside in virtually anyway possible.


----------



## Bagpuss (Apr 30, 2013)

JustinAlexander said:


> Neither of which explains why the Doctor wanted their help in the first place.




He doesn't want their help. He wants/needs an audience and with Clara missing they were the next best thing. Having a companion someone to share the experience and see how amazing he is, is a vital part of the Doctor's psyche, he doesn't work well alone, and this has been established multiple times in the series.

Also the Doctor doesn't know how much use they will be before he goes in there, better to have help you don't need, than to need help and not have it.

__________________________________

I though the voices Bram van Baalen overhears in the console room being from the very first episode where Susan explains the meaning of TARDIS was a nice touch and again fits with the theme of family.

Bit disappointed the umbrella Clara picked up wasn't McCoy's question mark one.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 30, 2013)

Folks, 

Please continue the conversation as if *JustinAlexander* isn't here for a few days.


----------



## Mallus (Apr 30, 2013)

MerricB said:


> Instead, I thought that his main motivations were (a) you've created this problem, now fix it, and (b) let's keep an eye on you so you don't muck things up more!



Yeah, I can see that. I'm not sure where my impression came from -- it was a gut-criticism, not an objective one (hah!). 

It might be just an artifact of how compressed the storytelling was. The Doctor needs the Salvage Brothers help at first because of the fuel leak, but that's solved immediately (I think).  Then he lies to them to keep them on-board, even though their sketchy magno-grab users. That part felt off to me. As far as the Doctor knew, they were no longer in a race against the clock. 

Or it might be I'm unfairly comparing this episode to "Hide" (which I thought was excellent). "Hide" opens up without explaining _why_ the Doctor and Clara arrive at the house. The answer, of course, is to have and adventure, and by not offering a reason it seems like a clever piece of writing, acknowledging the perfunctory artificiality of most episodes set-ups. But halfway through it's revealed the Doctor has a very good reason for going to the mansion -- he just didn't inform Clara. Great stuff, in my book. Playing the genre-savvy members of the audience like a violin. 

I kept expecting there to be another reason for the Doctor dragging the Salvage Brothers along... 



> Particularly enjoyed the Doctor in full-on serious mode when threatening the brothers.



That was great. Reminded me the whimsical threatening bullying of Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka -- I mean that as the highest of praise.

I'm enjoying the current half-season so far. To my mind, the only really weak --ie, uninteresting-- episode is "Cold War". "The Bells of St. Johns" and "Hide" have been particularly strong.


----------



## Herschel (Apr 30, 2013)

Bagpuss said:


> He doesn't want their help. He wants/needs an audience and with Clara missing they were the next best thing. Having a companion someone to share the experience and see how amazing he is, is a vital part of the Doctor's psyche, he doesn't work well alone, and this has been established multiple times in the series.
> 
> Also the Doctor doesn't know how much use they will be before he goes in there, better to have help you don't need, than to need help and not have it.
> 
> ...




I immediately equated the umbrella with McCoy, not actually registering it wasn't the question mark one. 

Just before the glimpse of the pool there was also an observatory shot which my mind immediately went to "How did he get the telescope from the Torchwood Estate?", probably in no small part due to what appeared to be a crescent moon near what would be the base. 

As to the former point, I also think (as has been established) the Doctor wants to show people a 'better way to live.' as Rose emphatically pointed out in "The Parting of Ways". He figured out Tricky was a human right away and confirmed when discussing respirators/suits.


----------



## MerricB (Apr 30, 2013)

Mallus said:


> Yeah, I can see that. I'm not sure where my impression came from -- it was a gut-criticism, not an objective one (hah!).
> 
> It might be just an artifact of how compressed the storytelling was. The Doctor needs the Salvage Brothers help at first because of the fuel leak, but that's solved immediately (I think).  Then he lies to them to keep them on-board, even though their sketchy magno-grab users. That part felt off to me. As far as the Doctor knew, they were no longer in a race against the clock.




Although there wasn't a race against the clock, I did get the impression that being lost in the damaged TARDIS could be quite dangerous, so the longer Clara was on her own the worse it would be. And this Doctor has hidden motivations (much like McCoy), so I'm quite happy when he doesn't spell everything out.



> Or it might be I'm unfairly comparing this episode to "Hide" (which I thought was excellent). "Hide" opens up without explaining _why_ the Doctor and Clara arrive at the house. The answer, of course, is to have and adventure, and by not offering a reason it seems like a clever piece of writing, acknowledging the perfunctory artificiality of most episodes set-ups. But halfway through it's revealed the Doctor has a very good reason for going to the mansion -- he just didn't inform Clara. Great stuff, in my book. Playing the genre-savvy members of the audience like a violin.




Very seventh Doctor! Hide was great - the only thing I didn't like was the revelation about the creature's motivations at the end, but I can understand why that was there. 



> That was great. Reminded me the whimsical threatening bullying of Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka -- I mean that as the highest of praise.




Understand that entirely. 



> I'm enjoying the current half-season so far. To my mind, the only really weak --ie, uninteresting-- episode is "Cold War". "The Bells of St. Johns" and "Hide" have been particularly strong.




I was in full fan-boy mode during Cold War, which probably shows how much I'm steeped in Doctor Who lore. Though I've never seen the Ice Warriors, reading the novelization several times when growing up made me a fan. (And I've seen the Seeds of Death and the two Peladon tales several times). I'm very much looking forward to the release of the surviving Ice Warriors episodes in the near future. And the Tenth Planet...

I thought it odd that my biggest problem with the "Russian" sailors was that they didn't have _Scottish_ accents? Damn you, Sean Connery! 

I found the ending of Cold War odd - my interpretation is that the Doctor and Clara both fail to protect everyone, and they only survive due to the Grand Marshall being wrong about his people not coming. However, it doesn't quite play out that way and I'm not quite sure if it's a failure of the writing or the directing.

Cheers!


----------



## Herschel (May 3, 2013)

Supposedly in "The Name of the Doctor" there will be a "post-library" River appearance. Maybe Charlotte Abigail Lux will have something to do with Clara. I suppose it's possible that the Doctor loses Clara again or some such and River and CAL create a "respawning" Clara to try and bolster him as he did them. Maybe Clara gets saved to the core or some such. But then why wouldn't River be the re-spawn? And making the Clara re-spawn River wouldn't make sense. Weird, but certainly possible I suppose. 

Also, according to a BBC release, David tennant will be the only previous Doctor appearing in teh 50th anniversary special, leading to speculation he's the human version with Rose from the parallel universe. Christopher Eccleston was in talks with Moffat early on but declined to be involved. I'm not sure how much of teh story changed at that point but I would have liked to see McGann don his frock coat once more.


----------



## MerricB (May 4, 2013)

The Crimson Horror was a fun episode - although I'm now really wanting to see stories told over two episodes again. A lot of the episodes could benefit from having more space to tell the tale in.

Cheers!


----------



## Bagpuss (May 5, 2013)

If they went back to an hour it would help, and is it really so hard to have it at the same time each week?


----------



## Morrus (May 5, 2013)

My favourite of the series so far. A light, fairly tight, standalone episode. The usual handful of classic references we're getting each episode this 50th anniversary year. Though the sonic screwdriver cures diseases now? 

I'm not convinced that anybody, upon seeing old photos of someone that looks like someone they know, would think "time traveller" rather than "coincidental lookalike". Or indeed that "I'll tell my dad!" would bother anyone in the slightest. So he'd laught and tell you to do your homework.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 5, 2013)

MerricB said:


> ... although I'm now really wanting to see stories told over two episodes again. A lot of the episodes could benefit from having more space to tell the tale in.
> 
> Cheers!




I have to say that that was one of my favorite things about the earlier series.  That "mini-series" style pacing really worked well for many of those storylines.  Overall quality aside, sometimes the modern stories seem a bit rushed.


----------



## Morrus (May 5, 2013)

Bagpuss said:


> If they went back to an hour it would help, and is it really so hard to have it at the same time each week?




ITV and the BBC put their highest rated (non-soap) shows of the week on Saturday evening. It's a major battleground for ratings with lots of game theory about what you schedule against and what you don't. Doctor Who and The Voice on BBC1 vs. Britain's Got Talent on ITV. That's partly why the times aren't announced until the last minute (I.e. 7 days before, when the Sky planner needs it).


----------



## MerricB (May 5, 2013)

Morrus said:


> My favourite of the series so far. A light, fairly tight, standalone episode. The usual handful of classic references we're getting each episode this 50th anniversary year. Though the sonic screwdriver cures diseases now?




My impression was that it was the decontamination booth/shower he got into that reversed the poisoning; the screwdriver was just used for activation/adjustment.



> I'm not convinced that anybody, upon seeing old photos of someone that looks like someone they know, would think "time traveller" rather than "coincidental lookalike". Or indeed that "I'll tell my dad!" would bother anyone in the slightest. So he'd laught and tell you to do your homework.




I'm thinking there's a greater Intelligence at work here... how did they get those photos in the first place? 

Cheers!


----------



## Bagpuss (May 5, 2013)

Morrus said:


> I'm not convinced that anybody, upon seeing old photos of someone that looks like someone they know, would think "time traveller" rather than "coincidental lookalike".




Well there were two people they know (Clara and her body friend) that hang around together, hanging around together that's more than a coincidence.



> Or indeed that "I'll tell my dad!" would bother anyone in the slightest. So he'd laught and tell you to do your homework.




Well yeah that's less believable, but really is it any more so than a boy in the victorian era that talks like a SatNav and is called Thomas, Thomas?


----------



## delericho (May 5, 2013)

Thought "The Crimson Horror" was the best episode since the series resumed. It really seemed to hit all the right notes at just the right time.

Though what are those kids doing, having a Galvatron toy from 1986? Are they time travellers too?


----------



## Krug (May 5, 2013)

Yeah I enjoyed this episode. The previous episodes have been far too much romantically centered, and the pacing was superb. Emma Peel was great too!


----------



## Morrus (May 5, 2013)

Bagpuss said:


> Well yeah that's less believable, but really is it any more so than a boy in the victorian era that talks like a SatNav and is called Thomas, Thomas?




Hah - yeah, I'd managed to forget about that.


----------



## Bedrockgames (May 5, 2013)

MerricB said:


> I'm thinking there's a greater Intelligence at work here... how did they get those photos in the first place?
> 
> Cheers!




and who took them?


----------



## Bagpuss (May 5, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Hah - yeah, I'd managed to forget about that.




I wonder if that is just a writers idea of a joke, or something like the GI at work.


----------



## Plane Sailing (May 6, 2013)

Krug said:


> Yeah I enjoyed this episode. The previous episodes have been far too much romantically centered, and the pacing was superb. Emma Peel was great too!




I'd not spotted that it was Emma Peel... Great acting there.


----------



## Tonguez (May 6, 2013)

Bagpuss said:


> I wonder if that is just a writers idea of a joke, or something like the GI at work.




yeah I was wondering if Tom Thomas might be more hint than bad joke. I think the leech design was a bad joke though 

However I did like the gobby Australian reference

and think Ninja Jenny needs her own episode


----------



## Herschel (May 6, 2013)

The leech seemed to me to be a throwback to the old series. I did get a laugh when Rachel Stirling mutilated it with her cane though. There's something about this episode I feel I've missed. Just a nagging feeling there's something I didn't pick up that I should have. Only two episodes left then another 6-month wait. I have gotten the feeling that about half the "Part Two" episodes could have been two-parters.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 6, 2013)

There was a bit more humor in this episode than has been standard of late.


----------



## Nellisir (May 6, 2013)

OK, I really liked this one.  Straight up liked it.  Still got the family thing going on.


----------



## Herschel (May 6, 2013)

It was fun. At first I thought they were going back to an almost Doctorless episode like they did during the Tennant years. Thomas Thomas made me groan though.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 6, 2013)

Bagpuss said:


> Well yeah that's less believable, but really is it any more so than a boy in the victorian era that talks like a SatNav and is called Thomas, Thomas?






Herschel said:


> Thomas Thomas made me groan though.




It took me a minute to get that one.

And for anyone who was slower on that than I was:
http://www.tomtom.com/en_us/products/?WT.Click_Link=top_nav


----------



## Tonguez (May 7, 2013)

btw does anyone else miss the Silurians actually looking like reptiles (albeit with 3 eyes) rather than Vastra the Snake-girl scaley? 

Yeah the Great Detective is cool but her face is far too human and I just can't shake off the feeling that her designer had a weird fetish...


----------



## lin_fusan (May 7, 2013)

I almost wish that the Doctor was down and out for the count to have made this a full Doctor-less episode. There would have been a lot of interesting drama and dialogue between the Victorian Three and Clara, and it would have given these other characters a little more focus and screentime.


----------



## Morrus (May 7, 2013)

lin_fusan said:


> I almost wish that the Doctor was down and out for the count to have made this a full Doctor-less episode. There would have been a lot of interesting drama and dialogue between the Victorian Three and Clara, and it would have given these other characters a little more focus and screentime.




It was clearly a backdoor pilot for a series.  But leaving the Doctor out completely would have made that a bit too obvious - and I imagine folks would complain that a whole episode out of the mere 8 this year was being wasted.


----------



## lin_fusan (May 7, 2013)

I thought "The Snowmen" was the backdoor pilot for the Victorian Three?


----------



## MarkB (May 7, 2013)

lin_fusan said:


> I thought "The Snowmen" was the backdoor pilot for the Victorian Three?




Backdoor co-pilot, then?


----------



## Aeolius (May 9, 2013)

Have you seen 



Spoiler



John Hurt


's teaser/rumor about his role in the 50th?  BLASTR Link

[sblock=Photo] 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 [/sblock]

(edit: name/photo hidden. Sorry Morrus)


----------



## Morrus (May 9, 2013)

Spoilers, dude. Sheesh. I hadn't seen that, deliberately so.


----------



## RangerWickett (May 10, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Spoilers, dude. Sheesh. I hadn't seen that, deliberately so.




Ban him!


----------



## Aeolius (May 10, 2013)

To be fair, any rumors at this juncture are still simply rumors. The above-mentioned actor's participation has been in the news for weeks, so I took it as common knowledge.

As far as spoilers go:  [video]http://teamcoco.com/video/conan-highlight-star-trek-spoilers[/video]


----------



## JediSoth (May 10, 2013)

Remember: The Moffat lies...and has been known to deliberately troll fans.


----------



## Tonguez (May 11, 2013)

RangerWickett said:


> Ban him!




I say we let him sleep with the fishes


----------



## Morrus (May 12, 2013)

I enjoyed today's episode. A Gaiman take on Cybermen. It did drum home just how similar Cybermen and Borg are in concept, though (I think it was a deliberate but friendly jab at the Star Trek writers by using some of its TNG imagery to portray elements of Cybermen from 45 years ago - the similarity was brought up recently in the Cyberman/Borg Doctor Who/Star Trek crossover comic, too).  _Who_ did assimilation first, and now it borrowed "upgrading" (adapting) from ST, making them both essentially the same.

I love it when they refer to hundreds of galaxies. Very few sci-fi properties go beyond the one. Star Trek and Star Wars are both one galaxy. Who is the entire universe - The Doctor is just in a different scale to everyone else - all of time, and _all_ of space. And Wickett the Ewok is Emperor of a hundred galaxies! Seriously, Warwick Davis is everywhere right now. 

Last ep next week. I bet 100% we won't find out the name of The Doctor. There's no name that would be interesting, let alone impressive. Jeff? Gooblebloop? xgHdjd? 173.42?  Bob? Julius Caesar?  Rassilon? Nothing can be anything other than anticlimactic.  So we won't hear it.


----------



## Crothian (May 12, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Last ep next week. I bet 100% we won't find out the name of The Doctor. There's no name that would be interesting, let alone impressive. Jeff? Gooblebloop? xgHdjd? 173.42?  Bob? Julius Caesar?  Rassilon? Nothing can be anything other than anticlimactic.  So we won't hear it.




John Smith


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 12, 2013)

What if his name is "Samuel L. Jackson?"


----------



## jonesy (May 12, 2013)

Plot twist: the name of The Doctor is Who.


----------



## Grumpy RPG Reviews (May 12, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> What if his name is "Samuel L. Jackson?"




Gallifrayian! Do you speak it?


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 12, 2013)

No, acutally, he's Mr. Who- he never completed any of his post-grad work.  Its one of the reasons Rassilon disliked him.


----------



## jonesy (May 12, 2013)

Or maybe his name _is_ "thedoctor", only that's the way it's said out loud.


----------



## Crothian (May 12, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> No, acutally, he's Mr. Who- he never completed any of his post-grad work.  Its one of the reasons Rassilon disliked him.




Is he also on first?


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 12, 2013)

At any given point in time?  Probably.


----------



## Nellisir (May 12, 2013)

Thanks to a glitch with BBC America, or possibly the cable company, I've not seen all of it yet.  So thanks for that bit about Warwick Davis.  

I've enjoyed what I've seen of it so far.


----------



## RangerWickett (May 12, 2013)

Morrus said:


> And Wickett the Ewok is Emperor of a hundred galaxies!




Thank you. You're too kind.



Fun episode. Some people hated on it, . . . and it is a bit depressing that 



Spoiler



multiple people died just so the Doctor could rescue two kids; they could have just blown up the planet at the beginning, right? If the Emperor had just done his job and activated the bomb, everyone (except the kids) would have been teleported to safety.


----------



## Herschel (May 12, 2013)

I liked the episode though I'm really looking forward to next week. I'm now wishing I'd pre-ordered Series 7 on DVD as apparently some went out early. Moffat is promising to release a Matt and David video after the episode if spoilers don't show up online.


----------



## MarkB (May 13, 2013)

I enjoyed the episode, and I like the new Cyberman design (though the glowing chest plate is a little too "Iron Man").



RangerWickett said:


> Fun episode. Some people hated on it, . . . and it is a bit depressing that
> 
> 
> 
> ...




That stuff didn't bother me as much as right at the very beginning. The Doctor suspects that something is wrong, maybe very wrong, and the Cybermen may be involved. He can (a) take the kids home and then return a few seconds later, or (b) send the kids to sleep in the TARDIS. Instead he has them kip down not ten feet away from where he first spotted signs of trouble.


----------



## Plane Sailing (May 13, 2013)

MarkB said:


> That stuff didn't bother me as much as right at the very beginning. The Doctor suspects that something is wrong, maybe very wrong, and the Cybermen may be involved. He can (a) take the kids home and then return a few seconds later, or (b) send the kids to sleep in the TARDIS. Instead he has them kip down not ten feet away from where he first spotted signs of trouble.




That bothered me too - it was such an astonishingly stupid thing to do that I can't believe that neither the Doctor nor Clara batted an eyelid about it.


----------



## Plane Sailing (May 19, 2013)

No discussion about the doctors name yet? Well, I'll wait for others to start it...


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 19, 2013)

I'm not sure which is more dangerous: having 2 kids sleeping in a room on a planet he _suspects_ may have problems (when there are perfectly healthy adults running around the planet, unscathed...or leaving 2 kids alone, unsupervised, on the TARDIS.


----------



## MerricB (May 19, 2013)

Nice ending to The Name of the Doctor.

Cheers!


----------



## Aeolius (May 19, 2013)

agreed. My brain....ummmm.... Hurts


----------



## Richards (May 19, 2013)

I think that was an awesome explanation for Clara, "The Impossible Girl."  All in all, a very enjoyable episode - probably my favorite of the half-season.

Johnathan


----------



## Bedrockgames (May 19, 2013)

Bedrockgames said:


> excellent. If she turns out not to be CAL, I will write a blog entry entitled Morrus was Right and I was Wrong on the Bedrock Blog.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, this made me nervous about offering the wager, but I suspect he is just trying to throw us off the scent.






Here you go Morrus (if you haven't seen the finale don't follow the link): http://thebedrockblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/morrus-was-right-and-i-was-wrong.html


----------



## Eridanis (May 19, 2013)

Yeah, the explanation for Clara was pretty sensible; far less hand-wavey than I'd expected. This finale felt a lot more organic (and IMO moving) that "The Wedding of River Song" last year. Very good episode, and it wrapped up what I thought was a very good run this Spring.

I'd even go as far as to say that Season 7 _in toto_ was the best season of NewWho. Some genuinely excellent episodes (Asylum, Angels Take Manhattan, Hide, JttCotT, and this one) and only two that I have no real desire to see again (Town Called Mercy, Rings of Akhaten). All very watchable, with none being terrible stinkers in my mind.

And Bedrockgames, you were incorrect, but definitely in the right neighborhood. Certainly closer than my thinking, which was that the Bad Wolf had something to do with it.


----------



## Bedrockgames (May 19, 2013)

Eridanis said:


> Yeah, the explanation for Clara was pretty sensible; far less hand-wavey than I'd expected. This finale felt a lot more organic (and IMO moving) that "The Wedding of River Song" last year. Very good episode, and it wrapped up what I thought was a very good run this Spring.





Agree. And they mentioned the Valeyard, which I think may be coming down the pike if Hurt's character is the incarnation people say. It also sounded like the great intelligence said he would be known as the beast as well. But the only beast i could think of is the one from the Satan Pit.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 19, 2013)

Perhaps its a hint of a crossover with Marvel Comics...


----------



## RangerWickett (May 19, 2013)

Dr. Hank McCoy
Dr. Leonard McCoy
Dr. Sweetie McCoy? (Based on the show, his name is either Sweetie or Please.)


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 19, 2013)

Its not please, and we don't actually know what she said to open it.


----------



## MarkB (May 19, 2013)

I felt that it took a little too long getting to the point of Clara jumping in after the GI did - it was plainly obvious from the opener that that's what she was going to do, so it just felt like we were marking time waiting for her to do it. I think I'd have had more patience for the scene if the episode's opening scene hadn't been there to spell it out.

The Doctor's farewell scene with River was spot-on, though, and was the real emotional heart of the episode.

Clara had three chances to learn the Doctor's name during this episode, but it's uncertain whether she did so.

First, she got back part of her time-looped memory during their trip through the depths of the TARDIS, enough to remember the Doctor telling her about the times she'd died, but did she get it all back, including the library scene? If so, she too knows the Doctor's name, and that bit where she gets a volume of the Encyclopedia Gallifreya poured over her head may have future relevance after all.

Second, she was linked to River and may have heard River say the Doctor's name to open the tomb, if she wasn't too distracted by the GI-mook who was trying to kill her.

Third, she's seen every moment of the Doctor's time-travelling life, which may or may not include that particular personal detail - but does the Clara who the Doctor saved remember that experience?

I'm still not quite sure whether we're supposed to take from this that the Doctor's secret name is "Valeyard" or not, but I'm definitely interested to find out.


----------



## Morrus (May 19, 2013)

So are they saying that the last 9th and the Valeyard are one and the same? I thought the Valeyard was "between the 12th and 13th". I never knew what that means, but I like the reasoning that he's an incarnation, but not of "the Doctor", but of the Time Lord who adopts that name for all but one of his incarnations.


----------



## Mark Hope (May 19, 2013)

Yeah, I thought that the Valeyard came late in the Doctor's timeline, some kind of penultimate incarnation, or an interim manifestation like the Watcher or that Tibetan dude.

Hurt could be playing an aged version of Doctor #8, who forsook his own name in order to fight the Time War. When he turned round, the first thing I thought of was McGann's revised hairstyle and costume, only on a much older man.



Spoiler



And there's also that leaked photo from the set of the anniversary episode that shows John Hurt wandering about in Ecclestone's leather coat. That says to me that he's either an older version of Doctor #8 or an incarnation that comes between McGann and Ecclestone. Presumably Doctor #9 keeps the coat following regeneration?


----------



## Bedrockgames (May 19, 2013)

Morrus said:


> So are they saying that the last 9th and the Valeyard are one and the same? I thought the Valeyard was "between the 12th and 13th". I never knew what that means, but I like the reasoning that he's an incarnation, but not of "the Doctor", but of the Time Lord who adopts that name for all but one of his incarnations.




I think that may be what is going on(maybe  hurt's doctor hitches a way out of with the doctor and clara and the valeyard is more like an echo of the true ninth doctor? I suppose if matt us number twlelve that would qualify for "between 12 and 13). Or the big revelation is just that hurts doctors is the ninth  Matt is number twelve, and the next story arch leads up to the valeyard.


----------



## Herschel (May 19, 2013)

The thing I still wonder is the bit with River. Living River has been showing up throughout the Smith era but this was the 'Library" River, saved in the data core for "eternity". The Doctor's memory/connection wouldn't be defunct because he's still doing things with the living her. We still don't know how/when River actually met Vastra/Jenny/Strax and River knew of, but just "met" Clara (or was it Clara just meeting her and she actually knew Clara?)


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 19, 2013)

I have to say I'm a touch envious.

I was an Army Brat who was introduced to The Doctor when I was about 9 years old, when we went on a 1 week trip to London and I bought a stack of the books to read in the hotel room.  I finished them before we got back home.

As we moved as a family (or later, as I traveled for school), I got to see the movie with the first Doctor, some Pertwee episodes, and almost all of the Tom Baker stuff, but only a few from earlier and later Doctors until the "New Who" shows.  Result: some of the series history is completely unknown to me, like the Valeyard.


----------



## Morrus (May 19, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I have to say I'm a touch envious.
> 
> I was an Army Brat who was introduced to The Doctor when I was about 9 years old, when we went on a 1 week trip to London and I bought a stack of the books to read in the hotel room.  I finished them before we got back home.
> 
> As we moved as a family (or later, as I traveled for school), I got to see the movie with the first Doctor, some Pertwee episodes, and almost all of the Tom Baker stuff, but only a few from earlier and later Doctors until the "New Who" shows.  Result: some of the series history is completely unknown to me, like the Valeyard.




The Valeyard was a Colin Baker villain.  The Doctor was on trial by the Time Lords for interfering with history, and the prosecutor was the Valeyard.  Turned out at the end that he was a future incarnation of the Doctor ("between his 12th and 13th incarnations").  

He has his own wikipedia page:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeyard


----------



## Aeolius (May 19, 2013)

I stopped watching Doctor Who during the Colin Baker years. When the show took a hiatus, I lost interest. Granted, that was about the time I went to college, so it was a transitional period for me as well. 

When the show returned with Eccleston, it piqued my interest. My kids watched with my, on the occasions I remembered to watch the show. When David Tennant took the reins, it rekindled my interest in Doctor Who. When Matt Smith took his turn, my interest waned somewhat.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 19, 2013)

I've seen his wiki page, but its not he same as actually seeing the episodes. 

I had to look it up after the most recent episode mentioned him.


----------



## Nellisir (May 20, 2013)

Morrus said:


> So are they saying that the last 9th and the Valeyard are one and the same? I thought the Valeyard was "between the 12th and 13th". I never knew what that means, but I like the reasoning that he's an incarnation, but not of "the Doctor", but of the Time Lord who adopts that name for all but one of his incarnations.




I don't think they're saying that.  I think they're saying "Valeyard" is one of his names, but not necessarily the "last 9th".

I do think they're saying that Matt Smith is the 11th Doctor, but not necessarily the 11th incarnation.


----------



## Nellisir (May 20, 2013)

Oof.  Forgot to say I actually really really liked this episode.  It was...simple.  It made sense.  It worked.


----------



## Herschel (May 20, 2013)

The other question this episode raised was about the TARDIS and the Doctor. In The Doctor's Wife, the TARDIS said she picked the Doctor but in this episode Clara actually got teh Doctor to choose her yet the TARDIS doesn't like Clara? I know Clara is an abberation in the future (which the TARDIS can "see") but without her the TARDIS would have been decommissioned long ago.


----------



## Morrus (May 20, 2013)

Herschel said:


> The other question this episode raised was about the TARDIS and the Doctor. In The Doctor's Wife, the TARDIS said she picked the Doctor but in this episode Clara actually got teh Doctor to choose her yet the TARDIS doesn't like Clara? I know Clara is an abberation in the future (which the TARDIS can "see") but without her the TARDIS would have been decommissioned long ago.




Ssssh!  I think they forgot!


----------



## MerricB (May 20, 2013)

Morrus said:


> So are they saying that the last 9th and the Valeyard are one and the same? I thought the Valeyard was "between the 12th and 13th". I never knew what that means, but I like the reasoning that he's an incarnation, but not of "the Doctor", but of the Time Lord who adopts that name for all but one of his incarnations.




The original plan was for the Valeyard to actually be the actual 13th incarnation of the Doctor, but the dislike of JNT for this plan mean that instead he's vaguely described as being some interim state between the final incarnations (an amalgamation of the darker side of the Doctor's nature) by the Master. 

Is John Hurt the Valeyard? Doubt it. I could be wrong, though.

On Matt Smith: We've been getting better and better performances from him this season, and this one was glorious. When Clara first tells him about Trenzalore, Murray Gold underscores Matt's performance with a beautiful, understated version of the "This is Gallifrey" theme. Great moment in the show.

On Jenny's death: "I think I've been murdered". Gave me shivers.

On River Song: We still haven't seen her learning the name of the Doctor. There's a bunch of things still to be resolved.

Cheers!


----------



## Morrus (May 20, 2013)

MerricB said:


> On River Song: We still haven't seen her learning the name of the Doctor.




I may be misremembering, but didn't that happen during the wedding?


----------



## Morrus (May 20, 2013)

So, questions.  Or more like observationsthat Moffat puts things in scripts and then totally forgets about them.  

1) "On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the eleventh, when no  living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer...a question will be  asked." -- so that turned out to be nonsense.  Why is it the Fall of the Eleventh?  And, more importantly, what happened to no living creature being able to speak falsely or fail to answer?
2) As mentioned above, the TARDIS claimed to have chosen the Doctor; turns out it was Clara.
3) Why should a time traveler never visit their own grave?  Rory saw his. 
4) Who created the grave and set the password?  A spot where anybody can step in and rewrite the Doctor's history (and thus much of the universe's) protected just by a password?  One presumably not set by the Doctor or River, both of whom would be dead at the time.  

All that aside, I LOVED the episode.  Especially all the past Doctor references (and the interaction with the first Doctor).  Can't wait to see how Hurt plays out, and obviously excited about Tennant's return in November.

So.  Hurt is the ninth incarnation, but since he did not take the name "the Doctor" he's not the ninth Doctor. He's the one who fought the Time War, not McGann as previously thought.  And he did terrible things.  

In one sense (it's "Fall of the Eleventh", not "Fall of the Eleventh Doctor") that could now mean that in November, Tennant - now the 11th incarnation, though 10th Doctor - is the one who "falls".  Or it could be that Moffat totally forgot he ever wrote that line.


----------



## MarkB (May 20, 2013)

Herschel said:


> The other question this episode raised was about the TARDIS and the Doctor. In The Doctor's Wife, the TARDIS said she picked the Doctor but in this episode Clara actually got teh Doctor to choose her yet the TARDIS doesn't like Clara? I know Clara is an abberation in the future (which the TARDIS can "see") but without her the TARDIS would have been decommissioned long ago.




As I understand it, the likely explanation is that the TARDIS originally did choose the Doctor, but the Great Intelligence went back and diverted him to a different TARDIS, and then Clara went back and undid that diversion by guiding him back to the right TARDIS.


----------



## MerricB (May 20, 2013)

Morrus said:


> I may be misremembering, but didn't that happen during the wedding?




No - he actually whispers to her "Look into my eye". 

Cheers!


----------



## MerricB (May 20, 2013)

Morrus said:


> So, questions.  Or more like observationsthat Moffat puts things in scripts and then totally forgets about them.
> 
> 1) "On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the eleventh, when no  living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer...a question will be  asked." -- so that turned out to be nonsense.  Why is it the Fall of the Eleventh?  And, more importantly, what happened to no living creature being able to speak falsely or fail to answer?




May not have happened yet. It should be noted that Clara sees *11* doctors, despite this being the timestream of the entire life of the Doctor - so where are #12 and #13? The implication is that it's Matt Smith's Doctor who dies.

Interestingly, River wasn't living when she opened the doors.  I'm leaning towards "the fall of the eleventh" being something that is still to happen, but we'll see.



> 3) Why should a time traveler never visit their own grave?  Rory saw his.




And we all saw how that ended. Not well for Rory. 

The point is that graves of time travellers have small "cracks" in time. The Doctor, having travelled the most, has a very, very large crack.



> 4) Who created the grave and set the password?  A spot where anybody can step in and rewrite the Doctor's history (and thus much of the universe's) protected just by a password?  One presumably not set by the Doctor or River, both of whom would be dead at the time.




Could be River. Could be Clara. Could be a future Doctor.

Cheers!


----------



## Morrus (May 20, 2013)

MerricB said:


> May not have happened yet. It should be noted that Clara sees *11* doctors, despite this being the timestream of the entire life of the Doctor - so where are #12 and #13? The implication is that it's Matt Smith's Doctor who dies.
> 
> Interestingly, River wasn't living when she opened the doors.  I'm leaning towards "the fall of the eleventh" being something that is still to happen, but we'll see.




The Doctor is living and failed to answer. In fact, nobody even mentioned that characteristic of the place. We can speculate, but I honestly think it just got dropped.



> And we all saw how that ended. Not well for Rory.




Not *because* he saw his grave.  Just coincidentally as well as.



> The point is that graves of time travellers have small "cracks" in time. The Doctor, having travelled the most, has a very, very large crack.




Yeah, I understood the point. I don't think that the episode actually bore that staement out. I still don't see why he shouldn't visit it. The only problem was that the GI was there too and decided to use the crack. The Doctor's presence didn't harm it or him.

He should have said "A time traveller should never let an enemy have access to their grave because he'll use it to rewrite history" not "a time traveller should never visit his grave".


----------



## MerricB (May 20, 2013)

Morrus said:


> The Doctor's presence didn't harm it or him.




Have a look again - the Doctor gets very weak near it (about 30 minutes in). He collapses and says, "Which is why I shouldn't be here. The paradoxes... very bad".

Cheers!


----------



## Morrus (May 20, 2013)

MerricB said:


> Have a look again - the Doctor gets very weak near it (about 30 minutes in). He collapses and says, "Which is why I shouldn't be here. The paradoxes... very bad".




Forgot that. Yeah, that was just silly.  What paradoxes?  There were no paradoxes.  That's_ bad _technobabble, Moffat!  Bad man!


----------



## MerricB (May 20, 2013)

Morrus said:


> 1) "On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the eleventh, when no  living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer...a question will be  asked." -- so that turned out to be nonsense.  Why is it the Fall of the Eleventh?  And, more importantly, what happened to no living creature being able to speak falsely or fail to answer?




An alternative explanation...
...the Doctor "falls" to the planet, turning off the anti-gravity
...no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer... or they'll be killed by the Great Intelligence.

Cheers!


----------



## MerricB (May 20, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Yeah, that was just silly.  What paradoxes?  There were no paradoxes.




Ah, that's because of the Blinovitch Limitation Effect...

(Cue interruption by guerrillas).

Cheers!


----------



## Morrus (May 20, 2013)

MerricB said:


> An alternative explanation...
> ...the Doctor "falls" to the planet, turning off the anti-gravity
> ...no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer... or they'll be killed by the Great Intelligence.




Meh.  If either of those are the explanation (and they're not - I'd bet a lot of money on it being, as I said, a dropped thread) then it's weak as heck.  We can invent our own explanations for anything, but if we're doing that we have to be aware that's all we're doing.


----------



## Bagpuss (May 20, 2013)

But that's the thing with prophecies.


----------



## Morrus (May 20, 2013)

Bagpuss said:


> But that's the thing with prophecies.




What is the thing with prophecies?


----------



## Bagpuss (May 20, 2013)

That if they are vague enough they can be twisted to fit whatever events you like.  Like "Fall" has a number of meanings.


----------



## RangerWickett (May 20, 2013)

Also, Clara is the TARDIS. So she did steal The Doctor.

(That's one theory of why the TARDIS doesn't like her. Do you ever look back at things you did when you were younger and go, "Ugh, I was such an idiot"?)


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 20, 2013)

Bagpuss said:


> That if they are vague enough they can be twisted to fit whatever events you like.




Such as the very famous prophesy, "If you attack, a great empire will fall."  It wasn't a prediction that the attack would succeed...


----------



## Morrus (May 20, 2013)

Bagpuss said:


> That if they are vague enough they can be twisted to fit whatever events you like.  Like "Fall" has a number of meanings.




They didn't twist it to fit. They just forgot all about it.  

Trenzalore where no living being can lie or refuse to answer.


----------



## Mark Hope (May 20, 2013)

I'd love it if Mr Blue Head got the prophecy wrong .


----------



## Herschel (May 20, 2013)

There's also something else going on with River and Clara. When Clara entered the rift and River said she knew Clara was alive because they're mentally linked but then River (rhetorically, as it turns out) asked how she herself could still be there (on Trenzalore) if she were mentally linked to Clara. Her answer was , of course, "shhhh, spoilers". 

One of the nice things about series/seasons past is that Doctor has wrapped up arcs/storylines nicely at the conclusion so next series can start somewhat anew. Of course, up until Series 6 of the new run there was always a major cast change between seasons, either the Doctor (series one) or the companion. This time the change was after "The Angels Take manhattan". 

Another interesting thing is that when you get right down to it, the BBC has a relatively small pool of dramatic actors in their stable. The preview for "Broadchurch" (not airing here until August) featured David Tennant and Arthur Darvil. People joke here about "6 degrees of Kevin Bacon" but if you played it with any of the beeb crew you'd likely never get more than two steps.


----------



## Garick83 (May 21, 2013)

Any thoughts on the season finale for Doctor Who?


----------



## Bedrockgames (May 21, 2013)

Morrus said:


> As mentioned above, the TARDIS claimed to have chosen the Doctor; turns out it was Clara
> e.




I couldnt stop thinking about this one. It really stood out to me int he episode. Either they forgot or they have some other surprise in store (or the Tardis was lying).


----------



## Bedrockgames (May 21, 2013)

MarkB said:


> As I understand it, the likely explanation is that the TARDIS originally did choose the Doctor, but the Great Intelligence went back and diverted him to a different TARDIS, and then Clara went back and undid that diversion by guiding him back to the right TARDIS.




That makes a good deal of sense.


----------



## MerricB (May 21, 2013)

BTW, this is a pretty amusing look at the issues raised by The Name of the Doctor: http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/doctor-...stions-from-doctor-who-the-name-of-the-doctor

Cheers!


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 21, 2013)

Clara = TARDIS

Obvious.


----------



## Tonguez (May 21, 2013)

Hey in an idle moment of possible stage 1 sleep I was stuck with a sudden wild prediction of what the 50th might have instore
namely
The 50th depicts the Battle of Trenzalore (which might be the Timewar) in which John Hurt is the Doctor who is doing bad things for the sake of his own peace and sanity. Of course since the Time scar incident 11 is physically inside his own head and Clara and River have to do stuff to change the outcome of the battle. Of course John Hurt Doctor escapes and because he was never a real regeneration (11 was still alive inside himself) he doesn't count as part of the 13 and instead becomes the Valeyard ...

so 1 The GI reset the timeline 2 Clara re-reset the Timeline and 3. 11 resets the outcome of Trenzalore thus resetting the timeline again.
All those resets clear the way for an entire rewrite of the Doctor Lore

and as much as I love the idea of Clara being the Tardis what if Clara is infact The Other?


----------



## Morrus (May 21, 2013)

No, the GI specifically said that Trenzalore was not the Time War. 

I don't subscribe to the Clara TARDIS idea. She's just a normal girl who gets fragmented through time  that's the whole point. No, if there's an explanation there, it's that she's righting something the GI did but which wasn't shown to us.


----------



## lin_fusan (May 22, 2013)

The finale really makes me think that this half-season was a disservice for the character of Clara. There could have been so many interesting ways to foreshadow Clara more and give her some full characterization. 

I could have seen them being really cute and having each episode a call back to a classic Who ep, one per Doctor, and a hint of a Clara helping him per episode.

I mean, each season has (or had) exactly 13 episodes, that's 1 episode per incarnation.

I still think John Hurt is an aged 8th/Paul McGann.


----------



## Garick83 (May 22, 2013)

Personally I think John Hurt is actually one of two incarnations of the doctor.  1) He is the true first incarnation of the being who becomes "The Doctor".  Meaning John Hurt does the things that The first doctor William Hartnell started running from because he was ashamed and ran from his past and renamed himself as the Doctor.  2) he is in fact the actual 9th Doctor who end the time war and cause the pseudo deaths of billions before regenerating into Christopher Eccelston.  Thoughts?


----------



## Vyvyan Basterd (May 23, 2013)

Morrus said:


> They didn't twist it to fit. They just forgot all about it.
> 
> Trenzalore where no living being can lie or refuse to answer.




Said by a crazy murderer who was trying to save his own life. He could have just been lying. It may have even been part of the GI's plan to lure the Doctor's companions and the Doctor himself to the place where he wanted to exact his revenge.


----------



## MerricB (May 23, 2013)

lin_fusan said:


> The finale really makes me think that this half-season was a disservice for the character of Clara. There could have been so many interesting ways to foreshadow Clara more and give her some full characterization.




Of the 14 episodes (including "The Snowmen") this season, Clara has been in 10 of them. 

Cheers!


----------



## MerricB (May 23, 2013)

Vyvyan Basterd said:


> Said by a crazy murderer who was trying to save his own life. He could have just been lying. It may have even been part of the GI's plan to lure the Doctor's companions and the Doctor himself to the place where he wanted to exact his revenge.




Erm - I think you're getting things confused there. 

Crazy murderer guy: "The Doctor has a secret he will take to his grave, and it is discovered."

Secret = The Hurt Doctor
Grave is discovered.

Interesting thing there is the interpretation of "Take to his grave"... originally you think "Doctor's death"... but maybe not!

Dorium - that's the fat blue guy who has lost a lot of weight - relating the Silence's aims:
"On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the 11th, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a Question will be asked. A question that must never, ever be answered."

Fuller conversation:
*The Doctor:* What's so dangerous about my future?
*Maldovar:* On the Fields of Trenzalore, at the Fall of the Eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a question will be asked. A question that must never ever be answered.
*The Doctor:* "Silence will fall when the question is asked."
*Maldovar:* "Silence must fall" would be a better translation. The Silence are determined that the question will never be answered, that the Doctor will never reach Trenzalore.
*The Doctor:* I don't understand, what's it got to do with me?
*Maldovar:* The first question—the oldest question in the universe; hidden in plain sight. Would you like to know what it is?
*The Doctor:* Yes.
*Maldovar:* Are you sure? {the skulls start turning} Very very sure?
*The Doctor not very very sure:* Of course. 
*Maldovar:* Then I shall tell you. But on your own head be it.

Cheers!


----------



## MerricB (May 23, 2013)

Actually looking at that conversation... the one thing I'm not sure about is the Fall of the Eleventh. The question being answered led to the discovery of the Hurt Doctor, and the implications of that aren't known yet.


----------



## Bagpuss (May 23, 2013)

You don't think the film isn't going to be about the Fall of the 11th? After all it ends with him having stepped into his own timestream, which everyone there said was a suicidally bad idea. At the end of the episode the Doctor has found Clara but they don't appear to have returned to the real world the are still inside his timestream, they aren't out of the woods yet.


----------



## Morrus (May 23, 2013)

Vyvyan Basterd said:


> Said by a crazy murderer who was trying to save his own life. He could have just been lying. It may have even been part of the GI's plan to lure the Doctor's companions and the Doctor himself to the place where he wanted to exact his revenge.




No, no. Said by Doriam the blue guy while his head was in a box.

They've been talking about Trenzalor for a year or two now.


----------



## Remus Lupin (May 23, 2013)

MerricB said:


> Actually looking at that conversation... the one thing I'm not sure about is the Fall of the Eleventh. The question being answered led to the discovery of the Hurt Doctor, and the implications of that aren't known yet.




Yeah, assuming that Moffett has this all tightly plotted (which, with some allowances for handwaving, I'm inclined to think he does), all of the elements of the prophecy ultimately need to be significant, but as of this moment there are still a lot of questions:

1. "On the Fields of Trenzalore": OK, we're now at the fields of Trenzalore, though we don't know if the prophecy necessarily refers to _this_ trip to Trenzalore, or the one in the future where the Doctor and Tardis both die.

2. "At the Fall of the Eleventh": Up to this point, we've assumed that the Eleventh is a) Matt Smith and b) refers to his death/regeneration. But even if this is, as I suspect, actually the Doctor's 12th regeneration, the death of Matt Smith's Doctor could still count as the Fall of the Eleventh since he's the Eleventh incarnation to go as "The Doctor". However, if the Fields of Trenzalore represents the Doctor's "final resting place" (implied by the presence of the dead Tardis/grave), then "the fall of the Eleventh" suggests the Doctor's final death.

3 "when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer": Of course, this is a problem given the events of "Name of the Doctor" since the Doctor did fail to answer, or at least refuse to do so, and ultimately it was River who give the answer. So a lot rides on how this clause is or should be interpreted, assuming that the prophecy refers to this event, and not some other one that we've not yet seen. But the way the prophecy is written it implies that there's a particular reason why _this_ place at _this_ particular time would require a truthful answer. I hope Moffett has a good way of dealing with this element of the prophecy, rather than just dropping it.

4 "a Question will be asked": Well, Maldovar tells us that the question that must never be asked is "Doctor Who?" And The Great Intelligence asks that question on the fields of Trenzalor, which is what would lead quite reasonably to the conclusion that this is the event of which the prophecy speaks.

5. "A question that must never, ever be answered": I have to assume that what's meant here is that the question must never be answered _at this time_ and _in this place_ since at least one other being knows the answer to the question (and gave it at Trenzalor), it is the giving of the answer in that context that opens the Doctor's tomb, and allows the GI, then Clara, then the Doctor himself to enter his time stream.

So where does this go next? Whether Hurt's Doctor is the _real_ First Doctor, or the _real_ 9th Doctor or the Valeyard or some other incarnation, it seems that the outcome of his revelation will be a sequence of events which must lead to the fall of the Silence, thus their efforts, since the beginning of the Moffett/Smith run to thwart and destroy the Doctor. Apparently this entailed, first, the attempt to destroy the Tardis, which provoked all of the Doctor's enemies to attempt to seal him in the Pandorica, and then the attempt to turn River into a weapon that would be used to murder the Doctor at a fixed point in time and space. But since neither of those attempts ultimately succeeded (though apparently the Silence believe they succeeded at Lake Silencio, which is why we haven't seen them this season).

So the question for me is whether Moffett will tie all of this together in a neat little bow for us, or whether, once all is said and done, we'll be howling that he either handwaved too much away, cheated with timey-wimeiness, or just failed to follow through on the (very large) promise of this whole plot. Frankly, I'd be happy if the bow is only a little bit frayed and poorly tied at the end of the process, since it will be very tough to make this knot hang together perfectly.


----------



## Vyvyan Basterd (May 23, 2013)

MerricB said:


> Erm - I think you're getting things confused there.






Morrus said:


> No, no. Said by Doriam the blue guy while his head was in a box.
> 
> They've been talking about Trenzalor for a year or two now.




Ahhh...Don't know how my brain connected that to this episode. Oops.


----------



## Tonguez (May 23, 2013)

> 3 "when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer":



The Doctor did answer he said No which is a legitimate true answer, then River intervened before he was pressed further, It is a bit of a squirm but it does fulfil the prophecy


----------



## Bagpuss (May 23, 2013)

No living creature could speak falsely or fail to answer, because River who wasn't a living creature answered truthfully before they had a chance to lie, or successfully refuse.


----------



## sabrinathecat (May 31, 2013)

Seems that Time Gate (SF convention in Atlanta, GA) had a forum on RTD vs Moffat. Opinions became rather heated. Seems that there are more than a few not happy with the direction Moffat has taken. We Are Not Alone!


----------



## Bagpuss (Jun 2, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> Seems that Time Gate (SF convention in Atlanta, GA) had a forum on RTD vs Moffat. Opinions became rather heated. Seems that there are more than a few not happy with the direction Moffat has taken. We Are Not Alone!




A link would have been helpful, any recordings, or blogs about it?


----------



## sabrinathecat (Jun 3, 2013)

If I had them, I'd post them. You might try "Articles of the Shadow Proclamation"


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