Doctor Who

[Hexx]

The worst thing was you kept thinking it would go somewhere, that it would be to something, that it's would be explained.

But no. It's "payoff" is the planets's unexplained magic arse crack.

[Meh]

It was written like a child had scribbled some drivel down. Like much of RTD's Who shit.

[Creamstick]

Miracle Day existing has at least given us the SF Debris video reviews of each episode, which are great in a Plinkett-but-not-in-character kind of way.

http://blip.tv/sf-debris-opinionated-reviews/torchwood-miracle-day-review-part-1-6639075

[Comrade]

I say this a lot on here but people really have selective memories with Children of Earth. Some bits are great - ironically all the bits with the now-canon-breaking Peter Capaldi. But basically every other second of the show is total shit. Especially any scene with any of Torchwood in it. Remember the bit where the gang make a getaway on a speeding JCB? A SPEEDING JCB. Or one of the most remarkable moments in television, where, to equip themselves for their mission, there is literally a light-hearted comedy montage of the gang stealing all the stuff they want from innocent people?

Everything that made Miracle Day literally one of the worst television shows of all time was right there in Children of Men. Just along with some other stuff that somehow happened to be good.

[mrsnrub]

Not fucking Strax and madame vastra AGAIN

horrendous characters that take away from the "monster of the week" premise I love so dearly

Although I suppose children like them so my opinion doesn't count

[Meh]

I like them, but they don't seem to belong to a regen episode.

[Meh]

Watched all three in a row tonight, and it was mostly great. Expected the second episode to be the weak point like in the last two seasons, but it was great fun, and the third episode was the weak link this time...

WAT! This was a reply to the Sherlock thread wtf is going on?

[Glasgowchivas]

Watched all three in a row tonight, and it was mostly great. Expected the second episode to be the weak point like in the last two seasons, but it was great fun, and the third episode was the weak link this time...

WAT! This was a reply to the Sherlock thread wtf is going on?

You're in the wrong time-stream.

[mrsnrub]

I like them, but they don't seem to belong to a regen episode.

They take away from the potential threat of the sontarans and silurians in my eyes...ah well I dont run the show so I dont gets a say...

Hope they revive the sea devils soon...

[Davros sock drawer]

Not fucking Strax and madame vastra AGAIN

horrendous characters that take away from the "monster of the week" premise I love so dearly

Although I suppose children like them so my opinion doesn't count

I totally agree, I think they're rubbish.

[AceAceBaby]

They take away from the potential threat of the sontarans and silurians in my eyes...ah well I dont run the show so I dont gets a say...

Hope they revive the sea devils soon...

The show has enough one-note "kill/assimilate/control everything" monsters, and dealing with the silurians "we were here first" native narrative in the long-term would likely involve a lot of tedious geo(thermal)-politics and expensive makeup for every earth based episode. Strax and Vastra are at least interesting *enough* to be more interesting than those played-out antagonist races otherwise would be.

[Not Thread Owner]

I like them, but they don't seem to belong to a regen episode.

Is that a regen episode?

[Meh]

You know what I mean. I hope.

[Fury4k]

Is it necessarily from the first episode?

[kensei]

Pretty sure they are going to play up the comedy of Strax and Sontarans in general, then subvert it by making an episode where they are super nasty.

[Meh]

Is it necessarily from the first episode?

Glasgowchivas said it was from Capaldi's first episode, but maybe it's not the first one in the episode order.

[kensei]

It is planned to be the first episode in this case. Ben Wheatley is directing it.

[Flub]

I say this a lot on here but people really have selective memories with Children of Earth. Some bits are great - ironically all the bits with the now-canon-breaking Peter Capaldi. But basically every other second of the show is total shit. Especially any scene with any of Torchwood in it. Remember the bit where the gang make a getaway on a speeding JCB? A SPEEDING JCB. Or one of the most remarkable moments in television, where, to equip themselves for their mission, there is literally a light-hearted comedy montage of the gang stealing all the stuff they want from innocent people?

Everything that made Miracle Day literally one of the worst television shows of all time was right there in Children of Men. Just along with some other stuff that somehow happened to be good.

Jack also got his entire arsehole filled with concrete. Show.of.the.year.

If they hadn't tried to move it to the US I think the weekly event format could have worked very well for Torchwood.

[Flub]

On my drive to and from work I've started listening to Big Finish's Gallifrey series. Currently about to start episode four of season one and I'm enjoying it. Nice arc plot and it's great to hear Lalla Romana and Leela sounding the same as they do on TV. Two K9s is ace as well. I'm enjoying the mild shoutouts to the Bernice Summerfield range and apparently the final season (6) wraps up the show by linking it into the time war.

[mrsnrub]

Gallifrey was excellent. It would have been a fun spinoff telly series but now I treckon the day of the Doctor Who spinoff has been laid to rest, for a while at least.

Would be fun if they could talk Lalla and Timothy Dalton into doing one more arc explaining the return of Rassilon and his ousting of Romana as President and set up the Time War properly.

[SeanR]

[edit]

spoilered for potential costume reveal

DERP!

(why does the new doctor look like Gareth Hunt?)

Edited January 21, 2014 by SeanR

[Harsin]

Costume looks kind of boring (admittedly it's difficult to make a judgement from an awful looking plastic toy).

[Mr Cochese]

Those toys are hilarious.

[Fireproofradiator]

Looks like a regen figure to me. Same waistcoat and trousers why am I writing this?

[Uncle Mike]

Why are those toys so laughably terrible? None of them look like the people they're supposed to be, even slightly.

[SeanR]

maybe they're those 3D scans

like these

of some doctor who cosplayers or something?

[Mogster]

That's definitely just a regen figure. That's Smith's last outfit with the bow tie off.

[Davros sock drawer]

They changed the scale of the Who action figures a while back. So the rather detailed 5.5" ones are no more, and instead there are these crappy ones in the old SW figure scale (3.25" I think).

[AceAceBaby]

Doesn't that mean that Strax can fly a Tie-Fighter, though?

[Sprite Machine]

Aliens of London / World War Three

(Blog has pictures)

Since coming back to these episodes, a few things have become apparent. Firstly, they're actually a lot better than I remember. Secondly, Russell T. Davies writes "smaller" character moments better than anyone else in Doctor Who's entire run. Thirdly, these "end of the world" type stories are almost always terrible.

[Picture: The Slitheen's family car crash-lands in the Thames. An elaborate alien hoax, created by aliens. It's original, I'll give it that.]

What these two stories tackle rather brilliantly is the effect the Doctor has on the people around him. Rose going off on adventures through space and time sounds like a jolly fun lark, but a slight miscalculation can cause grief and harassment for the people she loves. This is something that Doctor Who never tackled before, or simply didn't care to. I really felt for Mickey in particular, having to deal with accusations and police investigation, and still be asked to forgive, forget, and save the world. He may come across as comic relief a lot of the time, but the writing and performance here is stellar.

[Picture: The bad wolf stuff is not so subtle now. More to the point, shouldn't the Tardis be paint-proof?]

Sadly, these two episodes are more likely to be remembered as "the ones with the farting aliens", which has also been the lasting impression it has left with me for the last nine years. The Slitheen giggling at their own flatulence sets a silly tone, but more than that, it says that these so-called aliens are not very alien at all. For all the cutting edge prosthetics and CGI, they're basically just a greedy amoral family who find the whole thing jolly amusing. A nice ruse (and the misdirection with the "pig" is nicely handled) but, by the end, it paints the universe as being a thoroughly ordinary place filled with people who are just exaggerated versions of us.

[Picture: "Why won't they call?!!"]

Where these types of stories usually fall down is in providing a satisfying resolution and portraying the scale of events. News reports fill in the "big picture", but one has to wonder about the specifics. How did the Slitheen provide this "proof" of the alien mothership in orbit? Did the UN not verify it? Is it really possible to launch an RAF missile using a web browser and a single password? Just how incompetent is the British government anyway? The Doctor's comment that humanity sees what it wants and ignores the facts in front of its face is amusing, but it stretches credibility an awful lot. And would he really not know when Earth made its first contact with extraterrestrials? Would that not be quite a famous date for such a big fan of Earth history? Moreover, wouldn't this technically have already happened decades earlier with the many alien attacks that UNIT has had to deal with (the Zygons' Loch Ness Monster springs to mind).

[Picture: The Slitheen slip out of their human disguises. This happens approximately 679,834 times in part 2.]

It's the details that nag away at me and makes me wish these stories would stick to the smaller scale stuff. For all the criticism of the Tardis spending too much time in modern day London, I have to admit, these scenes are the strongest dramatically, but there's only so much you can do here before it becomes boring. That said, any scene with the Doctor having to deal with Rose's family or modern day life is very funny indeed. I'd forgotten how much humour was in these episodes, and Christopher Eccleston's delivery is... fantastic. I can't fault him, really; and his solemn moments round off the character, my favourite being when he simply says "sorry" to the dead secretary whose name he didn't know.

[Picture: Harriet Jones, MP, rises up to the challenge.]

Part 1 ends with a classic cliffhanger just as the Slitheen reveal themselves, harkening back to the old days. It's an effective moment that seems impossible to resolve, and I don't begrudge the magical solution in itself ("ha-ha, I'm immune to your attacks! And also, I can zap you all because you're all connected for some reason!"). No, the worst thing about this is how totally undermined the cliffhanger is by the immediate preview of the next episode showing that everybody is fine. A post-credits scene is excusable, but these are absolutely, unmissably, immediate. Perhaps this was a management directive rather than a directorial or editing decision, but it's still awful.

[Picture: These sequences would have been infinitely more threatening accompanied by some Benny Hill music.]

A mixed bag, then. Most will only remember this as the one with the farting aliens and I would have too, but I'm glad to have given it a second chance and found the character drama, and those unique moments that focus on the life of the adventurer, kind of make up for it. But let's steer the Tardis clear of Earth for a while, yeah? Give it ten seconds, at least.