Doctor Who

[Harsin]

So there's a giant roll of kebab meat going through the centre of the planet.

Oh RTD.

[Mogster]

Torchwood just gets worse. It's got to the point where I want to see how it ends purely to see what crazy idea RTD comes up with, as it's long past the point where I care about any of the characters. Noting makes any logical sense, and there's not a single character in it who acts like an actual human being.

"Look at this moving, breathing man. He's clearly alive, right?"

"Nah, that's not what the report says. I'll just chuck him in a fire if it's all the same to you. Sorry for your loss!"

I'm looking forward to seeing how it ends purely to see how much more insane things can get.

[JohnC]

So there's a giant roll of kebab meat going through the centre of the planet.

Oh RTD.

I'll never see it as anything other than that now

[Harsin]

So in the space of 6 years the inhabitants of the RTDverse have lived through the following.

- Big spaceship crashes in London then Number 10 Downing Street is blown up with a missile.

- Another giant spaceship appears over London, causes 1/3 of the Earth's population to climb up to high places and threatens to make them commit suicide unless we give up half the world's population as slaves. Giant spaceship is then blown up by a highly visible Death Star style laser emanating from the UK.

- For months the entire world has weird apparitions appearing eveywhere. These apparitions turn out to be Cybermen who then start indiscriminately attacking the entre Earth (right down to kicking in the door's of random terraced houses in the UK). Then a load of Daleks appear and have a highly public battle with the Cybermen and the armed forces. Then the Cybermen dissapear and the Dalek's get hoovered up into the top of a skyscraper in Canary Wharf.

- A Godzilla size demon rampages through the middle of Cardiff in broad daylight.

- A huge snowflake (that is actually a spaceship) attacks London, there are tanks in the middle of the street firing at it and everything, before it mysteriously blows up.

- A major London hospital gets transported to the moon.

- The Master becomes Prime Minister and promptly kills the entire cabinet, most of his shenanigans are wiped out in a Voyager style reset switch scenario, but presumably that stuck.... oh and the UK Government now has a giant flying aircraft carrier.

- A giant flying version of the Titanic buzzes Buckingham Palace during the middle of Christmas Day.

- All the catlytic convertors in the world start spewing poison gas.

- Daleks take over the entire planet and transport the Earth to a pocket universe. The Earth is then towed through space by the Tardis.

- All the children on Earth start chanting the same thing. Giant pillar of fire appears in the middle of London. Governments around the world starts forcibly kidnapping children under the guise an inoculation exercise.

- Everybody on Earth turns into the Master. Then a massive planet appears next to the Earth.

- Everybody on Earth stops dying. The response of every Government is apparently to set up Death Camps complete with ovens and sinister officials wearing Gestapo style coats.

I'm sure I've missed a load as well.

[Lorfarius]

Is it on tonight? Looking at 3 different TV guides and they all show different things. Lottery, Total Wipeout and Doc Who at the same time, 7pm!

[JohnC]

Mine says it's on at 7. Wipeout before and Lottery after.

[Nick R]

The Radio Times and my Freeview EPG both say 7pm.

[Hexx]

Iplayer sasy 7pm

[Lorfarius]

I'll be counting the minutes

[Hexx]

Anyone else think the Dad's nice?

[The Bag]

And now I'm never sleeping again...

[Rudi von Starnberg]

Really liked that. Nice to have a stand-alone story again, and the central idea was great.

[Hexx]

It was standard "stand alone" NuWho - not terrible, but not amazing. Lots of nice performances and moments, but overall fairly predestrian.

Think it would put the shits up me if I was an 7/8 year old though

[omus]

Much better than fear her.

Monsters were wasted though, bit of a hackneyed story for something so sinister.

[Headache]

Thought the resolution was a bit weak and while they built up the tension nicely being able to just push past the man-dolls did remove some of their scariness. Otherwise I quite enjoyed it, certainly would have scared me as a kid!

[Mogster]

Yeah, that was a neat little story. Very well shot too, although like Headache said the ending was a bit weak.

[cassidy]

Disappointing ending but before that was rather good. Some nice direction as well I thought. And the first reveal of the doll in full was rather creepy. 7/10 I think.

[Space Gibbon]

Marginally better than the pirate episode, I thought. Not saying much, really. The episode guide on the BBC site says this was originally in the first seven episodes, so I'm guessing they swapped this and the pirate one around since the pirate one was a bit more lighthearted.

[locke_211]

I think I read the episode swap was because there were too many enclosed, claustrophobic episodes in a row. Though the pirate one had plenty of enclosed bits.

I preferred the pirate one, though tonight's was ok!

[Space Gibbon]

I thought there were a lot of similarities with The Empty Child - freaky boy responsible for monster outbreak, monsters turn others into themselves.

[NecroMorrius]

Great stuff.

[c-cat114]

Another vote for 'it was alright I suppose'. My main problem is that it feels like it's from the first half of the series; "right what shall we do now then eh?" "well I suppose that since I don't yet know that my daughter has been abducted why don't we go to alien paris."

[Lorfarius]

It was okay, pretty much nothing of note. I couldn't help feel that we had seen a similar story before though and the dolls just seemed a bit daft to me.

[Space Gibbon]

There have been quite a few episodes since the start of Moffat's run where the monsters seem almost incidental to the plot. I think the monsters really need to be at the centre of things, even if they're not what they appear to be, or they end up coming across as almost pointless.

[Harsin]

So basically that poor sod has to send the rest of his life living with the kid from the Joe Dante segment of The Twilight Zone movie. Yeah thanks Doctor...

[Nick R]

A decent little episode, and it's nice to have a self-contained story again after so many Series Arc Episodes.

Essentially a Fear Her remake with a few twists, crossed with the gas mask transformation from The Empty Child, and every suitable-for-children horror cliché Gatiss could fit in: music box nursery rhymes, children's laughter... even the phrase "we want to play" and, briefly, twin girls!

As for the episode swap, at one point the Doctor says "In the flesh," and unless the Gangers are due to turn up again this series, that phrase would have had more significance if it had come before The Rebeel Flesh two-parter.

There have been quite a few episodes since the start of Moffat's run where the monsters seem almost incidental to the plot. I think the monsters really need to be at the centre of things, even if they're not what they appear to be, or they end up coming across as almost pointless.

Like the Smilers in The Beast Below?

[Alex W.]

Classic Who. Anyone else get goosebumps at the "monsters are real" speech?

Fear Her was wank.

[sprite]

Ooooh was this swapped from earlier? That's a shame and sort of ruins my wondering why the doctor said specifically "in the flesh", guess that was an amy hint then

[NecroMorrius]

I don't understand why they didn't go for a role reversal and have the Doctor start shouting 'save ME from the monsters!' during the intense last bit where they were about to get dollied. He kept screaming for the kid to come in and fix it by facing his fear, reversing the roles like that would have made perfect sense, and I was surprised when they didn't.

[Matt Defis]

I really enjoyed it.