Doctor Who

[Flub]

When Smith was cast Moffat explained that he went into the casting fully intending to hire an older actor but Matt Smith blew him away. I suspect he'll be after an older actor again.

[Red Alignment]

I'm beginning to think that Matt Smith was completely miscast, like Colin Baker. Or at best, he's a Sylvester McCoy, a Doc-tor actor who needs the right script and decent direction to come across as watchable.

[kensei]

Nah he's genuinely brilliant. But even the best actors can look bad if the script or direction is poor.

Good to see we are at this point of the Doctor cycle. Fits roughly with Tennant.

[Harsin]

I'm no so much worried about the age of the actor, I just want the next incarnation to be less self-consciously wacky (with Murray Gold teedly-deedly-deeing in the background in case you forgot you're meant to laugh at the funny whimsical man).

[Delargey]

I'd like to see a Doctor with more flashes of coldness, like we saw at the beinging of this Doctors run in the whale episode.

[Nick R]

SFX have done a short review of the new Alaistar Reynolds third Doctor novel

http://www.sfx.co.uk/2013/05/08/doctor-who-harvest-of-time-by-alastair-reynolds-review/?utm_source=feedly

UNIT are facing an extraterrestrial threat from the invading Sild

The Sild, you say?

[Harsin]

Rumour about the finale from Gallifrey Base. Sounds fanwanky, but it does tie in with what Jenna Louise Coleman recently said in an interview. Possible big spoilers below obviously.

Clara has met the Doctor in his previous lives in passing and the opening of The Name of the Doctor will begin by showing these past incidents. Essentially it'll just be old footage with Clara inserted:

First Doctor - some newly shot footage of him and Susan stealing the TARDIS on Gallifrey. He turns to see Clara and I think it is colourised footage of Hartnell in An Unearthly Child. Second Doctor running in his big coat from The Five Doctors, Third Doctor in Bessie from The Five Doctors (both lifted from when they get snatched by the time scoop but with new backgrounds). I think the Fourth Doctor comes from The Invasion of Time. The Fifth Doctor in the web from Arc of Infinity. Sixth Doctor looks like someone in his coat walking swiftly behind Clara. Seventh Doctor hanging from the cliff in Dragonfire.

[HarMGM]

There is one other rumour as well:

Paul McGann has been filming an 8th Doctor web-series in secret for a few weeks now

[cassidy]

If HarMGM is correct I am chuffed as fuck. Btw Who fans today's qwertee t-shirt is awesome.

http://www.qwertee.com/

[Harsin]

I hope the Beeb have some good wig makers on call for Series 8.

[HarMGM]

Not only for series 8 mind, the filming for the Christmas special starts in September!

[Space Renegade Ulala]

Well the rumour is he's leaving at Christmas, so maybe he'll just spend the special looking like Commander Shepard, Extreme Face Slider Extravaganza Booglaoo version.

[Harsin]

25 seconds of tomorrow's episode, including a truly awful special effect.

http://blogtorwho.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/nightmare-in-silver-another-clip.html

[NEG]

Couldn't the daleks just make 1 dalek the size of a planet? That would be one way to EXTERMINATE the universe.

[Meh]

My god, I thoroughly enjoyed the last episode. Absolute nonsense - but proper good fun.

[Fireproofradiator]

There is one other rumour as well:

Paul McGann has been filming an 8th Doctor web-series in secret for a few weeks now

I would love that to be true. Was reading an old Doctor Who magazine where RTD point blank denied a rumour that was later revealed to be true so I'm hopeful old Who docs are gonna be involved despite Moffat's denials.

[SeanR]

That TomTom joke was shite

[El Pibe]

If HarMGM is correct I am chuffed as fuck. Btw Who fans today's qwertee t-shirt is awesome.

http://www.qwertee.com/

I can't work out what the tee was - is there a way to see it?

[Hexx]

So-so episode ruined by the 2 most annoying little brats in the universe!

[FishyFish]

Was that See You next Wednesday comment from the Doctor meant to be a John Landis reference?

[HarMGM]

Had a few problems here and there. Thank god the kids were put out of commission.

Pretty impressed with how the new Cybermen turned out. Every time I thought I had seen it all and out comes a new surprise. Proper jump scares as well this ep.

On another note, people ARE aware that these Cybermen are the Mondas Cybermen right? Gaiman himself confirmed it in one of the interviews and the production team has considerd every Cybermen appearance since 'A Good Man Goes to War' to be Mondas Cybermen.

[Mogster]

I loved that. The new Cybermen are great, although I felt they took a bit of a back seat to the Doctor's internal battle. I thought Smith shone.

It wasn't as good as The Doctor's Wife by any means, but it was easily one of the best this series.

[Hexx]

Yeah - I'd watch Matt Smith read a phone book, so it was great from that point of view.

[NEG]

Not as good as last week. Cybermen themselves done far better then Tennent's era however.

[HarMGM]

If there's one thing I've always loved about the monsters under moffat, it's how deep their voices can sound. The Ice Warriors, the new Cybermen, the new Daleks. All of them have this very deep voice which gives them a sense of menace right of the bat.

[MDY]

Better than before.. but they're pretty much just The Borg now..

[kensei]

I liked it. It was tense and had a credible threat and Moffats run has tended to have logical ends. But it made them scary by upping their power, much like what happened to the Daleks. Keeping going down that route and they are just man shaped Daleks.

Thing is, the Cybermen are potentially really interesting enemies. They are amoral, they are just driven by the impulse to survive, coming out of the fact they were born on a dying planet. There are more interesting stories out if that. Put them somewhere they can't instantly convert people due to a lack of available tech, or limit the conversion potential by it. Stack the odds against them and show them surviving because that is what they are built to do. Put them somewhere else doomed and pit the inhabitants a choice - die human or sacrifice emotion to live as cybermen. What would the Doctor do if they took the second option?

The best Cyberman bit was in one of the finales when they were on TV sayong "Cybermen do not know fear..." in a little speech. It lasted about five seconds. No one has followed through on the logic of it.

[Ste_S]

Did anyone else slow mo through the flashes of previous regenerations then? :shifty:

[sweetdaddyg]

That was fantastic

[Harsin]

Decent episode, I could have done without Murray Gold sucking away any suspense or tension from scenes that should have been pretty intense. Shame the annoying teenage girl didn't get booted out of an airlock on the way home. I can't help but feel they've made the Cybermen too powerful now, and while fine if they were a one-off episode monster, it's going to be really hard to bring them back in any story without them being an immediate world-ending threat, the kind of power creep that plagued the RTD era. I know the Borg cribbed heavily from the Cyberman concept to begin with so you can't really accuse these versions of being a rip-off, but I liked that the Cybermen traditionally were more low-tech with more of a body horror vibe. Now they reproduce by little robots that immediately make you sprout metal on your face there's not much to choose between the two villains.