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FishyFish

By FishyFish
in Film, TV & Radio

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Sarlaccfood

Sarlaccfood

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Just watched the latest ep on iPlayer.

I've only seen one or two classic Who's and have only been watching since the RTD era so I'm no expert or anything, but that was the best episode I've seen of Doctor Who, it was outstanding. Well done everyone!

Considering making this my new desktop:

post-4495-046081600 1305491420_thumb.jpg

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Retroid

Retroid

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Most interesting bit of the last ep was the similarity between the Timelord regeneration and the way the Tardis enters that girl, now it could all be coincidence or a lack of budget making them re-use special effects but there seems to be similarities between the two...

I'd love them to explore it more, perhaps Tardises were Timelords once and there's a nobilty element that decides whether you get to keep your form or be forced to regenerate into Tardis soul. The connection between the Tardis and the Dr is perhaps the main reason he betrayed his kind in the Time War...

Just speculating.

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Retroid

Retroid

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Hopefully it all means Amy is going to give birth to a TARDIS.

Might be a bit painful with the edges and stuff, plus the labour could last for an eternity! (Literally.)

...

But no, good guess! I was hoping it was going to be a new enemy but that's much more plausible.

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Corporal Flashback

Corporal Flashback

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"How? I'm a madman with a box WITHOUT A BOX!" Perfect delivery. :lol:

I often find myself wondering if I'm simply being too lenient on this series just because it doesn't have Davies involved, but then I compare the likeable characters of Rory and Amy and their placement in the series to the Rose Tyler's Eastenders of previous and am reassured. :)

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Hulot

Hulot

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I was exaggerating - but hang on, a family show is equally suitable?

Well, it wouldn't be any more suitable or entertaining for children, but I suppose there'd be more of a pretext for its inclusion if it was taken that some adults would also be tuning in.

I'm more worried about why you think a little bit of coy suggestion

A "little bit of coy suggestion"? "I'm sexy" is the exact opposite of coy! That joke about the bunk beds was on the right side of the mark (and was also on the better side of the funny/naff divide too), but "sexy"? Oy... I just can't say I see it as being that. At all.

... and what was effectively a gag about the Doctor being such a nerd he loves his spaceship as much or even more than his companions ...

That portentous Virgin Mary conclusion hardly seemed fitting for an innocuous gag (even if it was inadvertently amusing), nor that creepy line about touching the instruments (IIRC). Sure, maybe Gaiman was striving for something altogether lighter than my interpretation would have, but it's hardly credible that someone as intelligent as he is wouldn't have been aware of - and thereby approved - the weird undertones that ended up in the finished script. My reading is hardly bizarre or unfair given the evidence presented in 'The Doctor's Wife'.

... necessarily means that the show is copping out in someway when it doesn't become some insane David Cronenberg torture sex romp.

Again, I don't much care for the idea in the context of Doctor Who (what with it being fun for all the family, y'know - and no, I'm not asking for Cronenbergian extremities), but as an attempt was obviously being made to overturn apple-carts and upset the traditionalists with a bit of strange amour fou, then Gaiman - and whoever else had a hand in it - should have stuck to the courage of their convictions, giving a more natural container to the star concept than yet another Doctor-and-pretty-thing-lark-about-before-she-pops-her-clogs caper. Last night's compromise was particularly poor in this respect, with a real oddity in the form of the human TARDIS having the most trite and saccharine progress through the formula I outlined above - a missed opportunity when a more interesting (if incongruous) line of development was going begging. If a writer wishes to tear up the rules, great; if they want to stick to conventions but make them fresh, brilliant; but if they squander a knock-out idea by encumbering it with the tiredest Who plotting and dramatics, one can only shrug.

It may be that Gaiman was prevented from going further down a route of true weirdness by Who's nature as children's production, but that's hard to reconcile with the programme that included those "sexy" howlers, featured a 'was Rory cuckolded by the Doctor?' conundrum a few weeks ago, and even had a naked Doctor hiding under a lady's skirts at the very beginning of this series. Yes, all stuff more in the temper of Carry On than Debbie Does Dallas, but none of it within even the most liberal observance of the norms of children's broadcasting. Would a Doctor-TARDIS thing really have pushed the envelope too far in such a context? I'm doubtful. I admit I'm not sure such a loopy story would be exactly to my tastes, but even in a worst-case scenario I think I would have a preferred such a noble failure to the humdrum served up yesterday.

So, yeah, what I perceived to be dubious swings in characterisation and tone put paid to my suspension of disbelief. It seems others had a better time of it. Good for them.

Have you spoken to your therapist about this?

No: she refused to see me again after I angrily complained to her that Tom Baker's scarf was ruined in 1978, and that nothing has had any meaning to me ever since. :(

Ah the wonders of the internet - where the vast majority of people can come together and agree that the last episode of Dr Who was one of the best ever. Then unite for an inane argument with someone who denounces everything the show has done in the past ten years because the makers didn't throw away money building a single use set for a four minute sequence.

Citation needed, old bean. I was peeved that the backhanders to the fans were restricted to the comparatively recent history of the show (all the more so given the mehness, in dramatic terms, of the self-indulgences that were featured), but I don't recall damning the entire programme on that or any other basis. I dunno: is a mildly bitter, off the cuff complaint that a single episode didn't gratify a private expectation now taken to be a "denunciation" of hours and hours of programming? Search me. My disappointment over the absence of the old room seems to have become confused with my stronger opinions on 'The Doctor's Wife' and the wider series (and even then I can't see anything in them which is so sweeping or moralistic as to be a "denunciation").

Who gives a hoot about what console room they used?

At a guess, I'd single out the caricature of the strident twit which has been pasted over my reasonably good-natured responses and arguments. So, no-one at all, then.

You're completely missing the point.

I must be, for what I found to a muddled but otherwise so-so episode is being hailed by almost everyone here as a wonder for the ages. God knows what accolade might possibly be given to a future story that reaches the lofty height of being a bit above average. *winkadink*

Oh, for the days when this thread would unite in praise for superior stuff like 'The Girl in the Fireplace' or 'The Family of Blood'...

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Frosty

Frosty

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Most interesting bit of the last ep was the similarity between the Timelord regeneration and the way the Tardis enters that girl, now it could all be coincidence or a lack of budget making them re-use special effects but there seems to be similarities between the two...

I'd love them to explore it more, perhaps Tardises were Timelords once and there's a nobilty element that decides whether you get to keep your form or be forced to regenerate into Tardis soul. The connection between the Tardis and the Dr is perhaps the main reason he betrayed his kind in the Time War...

Just speculating.

Wasn't it said that during the Time War the Timelords were on the verge of ceasing to exist as physical beings and becoming pure energy or some kind of high consciousness? I suppose you could perceive that in two ways - that they had the ability to do this or confirmation that they hadn't done it before considering the context and gravity of the idea as it was presented.

Not a fan of the idea myself.

A "little bit of coy suggestion"? "I'm sexy" is the exact opposite of coy! That joke about the bunk beds was on the right side of the mark (and was also on the better side of the funny/naff divide too), but "sexy"? Oy... I just can't say I see it as being that. At all.

I don't know man, I think you're just getting too Freudian with the whole thing. I mean have you never described an object as sexy? It isn't that unusual, do you watch Top Gear? I know we've had some pretty intriguing revelations about Jeremy Clarkson's life recently but nothing quite like this.

I just think that the Doctor's affection for the TARDIS is an entirely healthy and normal one, borne out of years of being together and relying on one another. The idea of love, even romantic love, having to be physical just doesn't really follow for me.

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Flub

Flub

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Excuse my feeble mind, but do I remember somewhere in the run of Doctor Who way back in the 80s a mention of them growing tardis'?

It's been hinted at occasionally since the third Doctor. During the 8th Doctor novels while the show was off the air it was made pretty explicit. If you want to read about it I'd start with the stuff that introduced the original time war. First book in that sequence is Alien Bodies. I think all the stuff I remember about Tardis breeding was picked up mainly from The Taking of Planet 5.

Actually if anyone is interested in all the book crap I keep going on about and you have a good usenet provider than I heard that if you go to binsearch.info and put in collection of doctor who ebooks as your search term you'll get a pleasant surprise.

You 'aint seen me. Right?

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Flub

Flub

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According to RTD the lump of coral that Jack had on his desk in Torchwood was a baby Tardis.

Oh RTD.

At the end of The Ancestor Cell Compassion drops an amnesiac 8th Doctor on Earth at the beginning of the 20th century. His first memories are being on a train with a note telling him where to meet Fitz in 100 years. He's got a blue rock in his pocket that over the next sequence of books grows into his Tardis. He'd just stopped a Time War by destroying Gallifrey.

:sherlock:

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Headache

Headache

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Neil Gaiman's doing a live Q&A right now over at the Guardian website, over here.

First question and answer,

Why did you use the Tennant era TARDIS as the alternate control room? I would have loved to have seen an earlier version? SPT777

So would I. But I was not able to reach any of the earlier producers in time and ask them to keep their sets up.

Because I came up with the story before the Year Four Specials aired, I was able to ask them to keep the Christopher Ecclestone TARDIS interior. It stood in the studio for an extra eighteen months, and they lied to anyone who came past about why it was still there.

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Frosty

Frosty

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In almost all the drafts of the script until we reached shooting, they buried Idris's body.

And in most of those drafts it was very clear that House had absolutely survived.

Right now, it's a lot more ambiguous.

Oohhh, potential for Suranne Jones to return to the show as the vessel for a vengeful House... very welcome I suspect. Particularly with the adult male viewers.

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WibbleWorldGiddy

WibbleWorldGiddy

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... And there could be a House MD crossover in which Hugh Laurie tries to save him using sarcasm. With the entire cast of Full House. And the remains of Bob Monkhouse. I would pay my licence fee twice over to see that.

On a different note, I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the rubbish corridors. They look like they were taken from the set of Galaxy Quest.

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cassidy

cassidy

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Anyone with an ebook reader should do what flub says. I know I'm potentially stopping anyone from ever buying my collection. But honestly some of the books are some of the best Sci fi I've read. Dead romance and adventuress of henrietta street for example. Ps. I've read a lot of Sci fi.

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Flub

Flub

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Anyone with an ebook reader should do what flub says. I know I'm potentially stopping anyone from ever buying my collection. But honestly some of the books are some of the best Sci fi I've read. Dead romance and adventuress of henrietta street for example. Ps. I've read a lot of Sci fi.

Funny thing you mentioning Dead Romance. I'm planning on reading the key books from Alien Bodies up to Interference and then switch track and crack open my utterly delicious Dead Romance reprint and read that.

http://madnorwegian.com/192/books/sf-fiction/dead-romance-faction-paradox-tie-in/

I may fit in random flicks of The Book of the War in between. It's been ages since I've read any of this stuff. I'd forgotten how good it was.

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cassidy

cassidy

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I still have my saved document that tells you the correct path to read book of the war. I love my signed hardback book of the war and this town will never let us go.

Although I do have to say my first read of of the city is a moment I'll never forget. That reveal was just mind-blowing.

I think the books and including the faction stuff. Is my favourite dr who. Yes I went there.

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Flub

Flub

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I think the books and including the faction stuff. Is my favourite dr who. Yes I went there.

Much as I love the TV show (Especially the Moffat series) I have to agree. The books for me have the edge. Mainly I think because they were written to target an audience that had grown up rather than the sometimes odd mix we have to have on the show. Also there's no worry about budgets in the novels. They can pretty much do anything they like. It's a shame that the current novels are written for a younger audience. I really miss the NA and EDA days.

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