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FishyFish

By FishyFish
in Film, TV & Radio

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Hawkeye

Hawkeye

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Mixed feelings over that last episode.

Not a fan of the earth is doomed by a storm of Daleks invading again, but the scenes with Davros where excellent. You could also spot the getting shot by a dalek coming a mile off during the mills and boon run to each other bit. My main complaint will be others saving grace, which is the return of Rose. By the end of her run as the assistant I must admit that I was glad she was gone, and nothing in this episode has done anything to change my mind. If anything I'll really go against the grain and admit after hearing about Tate getting the role and thinking it would be a awful move for me Donna has proved to be the best assistant so far.

I also thought it was a rather tacky advertising service for Torchwood and Sarah-Jane Adventures, neither of which I have any time for. As for the Harriet Jones, ex-prime minister. Gies a fucking break.

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scottcr

scottcr

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couldn't stand CT in the first half of this series... AT ALL... by the Agatha Christe episode I had warmed to her.

She's now the best assistant from the new series - based on the Library episodes, Turn Left and Stolen Earth.

Wouldn't mind at all if Rose got zapped and the Torchwood and Sontaran appearance has shown that Martha isn't really that great.

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Hexx

Hexx

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No, look, it's no good. Despite the whole of last week's episode being a last-ditch effort to make us like her, I still don't know anything about Donna Noble. After the first year of Rose and a year of Martha, they were so familiar to us that we instinctively knew which way they were likely to jump in any given situation: when they didn't do what we expected, it was a deliberate surprise rather than an ugly hole in the characterisation. But Donna remains an excuse for Catherine Tate's schtick rather than a character, an empty celeb-shaped space where the heart of the series should be, which is yet another reason that the Doctor has ended up doing most of the hardcore emoting this year. I have no idea how clever she is, how stupid she is, how strong she is, how vulnerable she is, how acute she is, how gullible she is. I have no idea what she wants from life, what kind of childhood she had, what she might be like on a first date (her approach to men varies drastically from episode to episode, according to the comedy needs of the individual situation), how she might vote in an election, or even why she's so determined to stick with the TARDIS. Yet I do know everything I need to know about her granddad, partly because he's a lot more consistent, and partly because Bernard Cribbins is a much better actor. Donna is an individual whose only defining feature is to be "modern", performed by an actress who's been cast purely because of her showbiz appeal. In other words, she's the nightmare companion… Dodo Chaplet played by Bonnie Langford.

Complete bollocks from someone who justs likes bitching. We didn't know 2/3 of that stuff about Rose or Martha.

Donna - See her reactions to Fires of Pompy and the Slavery of the Ood. She explained why she was looking for the Doctor and traveling in PiC. The scene with her kids and how she reacted. How she dealt with stupid Ms Evangilista. Donna's less obviously known because we haven't had entire eps about her family (Fathers Day/Lazurus....turn left came close though) - it's all there in her comments and interactions though.

We don't know her perfectly, but just as much as Martha, and at least as well as we knew Rose after 1 season.

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Hawkeye

Hawkeye

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Wouldn't mind at all if Rose got zapped and the Torchwood and Sontaran appearance has shown that Martha isn't really that great.

Matha is totally wooden in this series. I think the script is getting too heavy in trying to cling to the old and when Rose and Martha left that should have been the last we saw of them. It's a big universe out there!

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Boyatsea

Boyatsea

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Adric will do to start with. Are you seriously saying that none of the new characters match up to him?

I think the masterstroke of new Who is its greater focus on the companions. Most of old Who's companions were there to scream, a lot, ask questions for the audience and not a lot else. Now we have a selection of well rounded characters that still make an impact when they show up after a long absence. Whether you like her or not, Rose is ridiculously popular.

Well, I'd love to return the favour, but I don't agree there at all. The characters in new Who are, for the most part, leaps and bounds beyond anything in the old series. Donna is a particular triumph, but there are plenty of others.

Generally speaking RTD has done an incredible job, something I never thought I would say at the end of 'Rose'.

o/\o/\o

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silentmajority

silentmajority

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(back to the books)

After the mystery of Wolfsbane, I've found another missing from the index at the back of the books ('Fear Itself') so have gone straight onto Vanishing Point. What happened there? Is it worth getting?

Fear Itself is a "missing" EDA set between Earthworld and Vanishing Point and is one of the best of the range. Definitely get it. It was published at the end of the run.

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cassidy

cassidy

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Fear Itself is a "missing" EDA set between Earthworld and Vanishing Point and is one of the best of the range. Definitely get it. It was published at the end of the run.

Seconded Cracking book, and that reminds me only read it once.

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Hexx

Hexx

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Yes. Please explain that to Mr Dalek Fleet.

You mean the fleet that was made of massive ships, that then turned out to be smaller than car sized when they attacked Manhattan?

123 hours, 30min to go!

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scottcr

scottcr

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I thought the FS - other than the mobile phone signals eminating from earth - were really good.

Didn't like the bit when Rose lifted the phone and 'prayed' for the Dr to find her though, jarred a bit.

Overall - absoloutely excellent episode. Donna really has come into her own now. Strongest companion we've had yet.

Bernard Cribbens is Legend.

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cassidy

cassidy

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what does that mean?

AI stands for “Appreciation Index.”

Again, this is a statistic arrived at through random sampling. What it basically boils down to is a bunch of people who watched a particular show are asked how much they liked it (or, indeed, didn’t like it) and give it marks out of ten accordingly.

GFK NOP Media supply the BBC Audience Research Unit with data measuring audience response to all terrestrial and selected non-terrestrial television programmes. The panel consists of 15,000 adults and a separate panel of 1,500 children.

These responses are particularly useful for TV companies concerning shows from niché markets –shows which do not get massive ratings figures or audience share but which do have a very good reception from those people who watch them. Nature programmes and things like Time Team or Qi are classic examples of the type of shows for whom the Appreciation Index could have been specifically designed.

It is, therefore, perfectly possible for a show to have received what in other circumstances could be considered decidedly average ratings but to still be regarded as “successful” within the industry if their AI figure is consistently good.

Many of the American import shows on Sky One and Five, for instance - Lost, 24, Battlestar Galactica, Bones, Prison Break and the various CSI shows – often get AI figures around the 90 mark, albeit with a small, but very dedicated, audience.

It's rather more unusual for a series to be very popular in ratings terms but also to get excellent AI figures, although Doctor Who, Waking the Dead, Spooks and Top Gear are examples of BBC shows which regularly achieve just that.

An AI figure is calculated from responses and is presented as a score out of 100 (not as a percentage as often incorrectly stated).

- What’s a “good” AI figure?

To quote, directly, from The BBC Producers Guide to AI

“The average AI is in the mid 70s, between 73 and 76.”

[Footnote: The average AI score for drama shows is slightly higher - seemingly around 77 or 78. In 2007 I saw an internal BBC memo relating to the first episode of Jekyll having received an AI score of 79 which the memo described as “slightly below average for drama in this slot.” This suggests that the top end of “average” AI for certain drama slots can be as high as 80 and that the science of analysing AI scores – like that of ratings analysis - is evolving all the time.]

“The top ranked programme over the last five years (1999-2004) has been a 92 with the lowest recorded score a 29.”

[Another footnote: Since this was written there have been a couple of cases of shows achieving a score lower than 29 and on 7 October 2007 an episode of The Sopranos on E4 received a mind-boggling AI score of 96. The highest AI score for an episode of Doctor Who currently stands at 94 for a repeat of ‘Utopia’ on BBC3 during early 2008.]

“Any score in excess of 85 is excellent. Any score in excess of 90 is exceptional.

Any programme that falls below 60 has received a poor AI. Any score below 55 is very poor.”

Since Doctor Who returned in March 2005, the lowest recorded overnight AI figure for a first night broadcast of an episode has been and “slightly-below-average-but-still-nowhere-near-bad” 76 (for 'Love and Monsters') and the highest an “excellent-borderline-exceptional” 89 (‘The Parting of the Ways’, ‘Doomsday’ and ‘Silence in the Library’).

In 2007, Doctor Who received AI figures consistently in the mid-to-top-80s (it averaged 86.5 across the whole season) a pattern repeated in 2008.

It has been speculated that these days Doctor Who may be largely the recipient of a “brand vote” from many AI jurists – that is, a standard, default “eight-out-of-ten” score based on their general appreciation of the show as an entity rather than of a particular episode’s worth, per se.

The fact that episodes like ‘Partners in Crime’ and 'The Unicorn And The Wasp' – which (to a degree, anyway) split opinion within fandom - all seemed equally popular with the general public as fan-adored episodes such as ‘Human Nature’ and ‘Blink’ may say far more about Doctor Who fandom than it does about the GP.

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Ste Pickford

Ste Pickford

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AI stands for “Appreciation Index.”

“The average AI is in the mid 70s, between 73 and 76.”

“Any score in excess of 85 is excellent. Any score in excess of 90 is exceptional.

Any programme that falls below 60 has received a poor AI. Any score below 55 is very poor.”

So, basically, the video game review score system.

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