Doctor Who

[BitterToad]

I thought either River or the same thing as was in Amy's room. Like a nice little twist at the end where the thing he fears the most is Amy alone waiting for him.

Of course in the RTD days I'd have expected a gay Dalek.

[gone now bye]

Well we could hear the cloister bell, so I'd imagine the Doctor's fear is being without his TARDIS. Without it, he's just a madman.

It's happened before - including in this episode - and he's coped.

[JohnC]

It's happened before - including in this episode - and he's coped.

But that was only temporary. When he finds a way out, he find the Tardis. I assume Zod means the Tardis properly dying permanently.

[gone now bye]

So...

We can't be done with Amy and Rory, can we? I'm certain they're down for the next series. What's going to happen there?

EDIT 2: Just checked the synopsis for the next episode, and Amy and Rory are in it. WELL DONE, BBC.

EDIT - AND ALSO! That seemingly throwaway comment

...from Rory with the "was" and the past tense". Thoughts?

[Not Thread Owner]

James. FUCKING. Corden.

FFS.

[mayor_mike_haggar]

And the cybermen.

As if one thing wasn't bad enough.

[Lorfarius]

Do you think it's captain jack with his trousers off, leeeeeeering?

More likely RTD threatening to return to write the scripts.

[Jack]

Oh my god I need to see James Corden being pulled apart by a pair of Cybermen. Limb by limb.

[Space Renegade Ulala]

Re. James C - Oh stop crying, I don't particularly like him either but he was fine in The Lodger.

Anyway, that was another smashing ep. After last week and this week, all is well with the world again, though it's strange how Moffat's gone from writing the best ones to the worst ones lately. Thank goodness the other writers have stepped up their game.

[RikC]

More likely RTD threatening to return to write the scripts.

Don't even joke about that! Can you imagine going back to shite like Last of the Time Lords, Journeys End or End of Time? Ugh!

Another really good episode tonight. Although, did it look to anyone else like they had switched Arthur Darvil for a straw dummy stuck to the back of the door when the minotaur burst in?

I think Matt Smith may be my favourite Doctor now. He's definitely made the part his own. Even in the weaker episodes his performance manages to hold my attention. Good stuff.

[Liamness]

That was creepy and emotionally testing.

But how can the Doctor justify travelling with companions ever again?

Moffat's/Smith's Doctor has before justified it by basically saying he finds it difficult to make decisions on his own, because to him the universe is just a bunch of stuff. He's seen pretty much everything many times over, travelling with people who haven't grounds him, stopping him from becoming too cold and detached. I think it's one of the earliest episodes with Pond in, she basically calls him a perv which he does not really deny, but instead qualifies by also saying 'I need to see the small picture' etc.

The Doctor and the companion is an interesting dynamic, sort of like Dr. Manhattan. and Laurie in Watchmen I guess. I'm glad it's being explored properly now. In the RTD era Rose was an excellent companion, and I would say a more likeable character than Pond, but in the end she was basically a love interest for the Doctor. The way the relationship is shown now is much more complex and morally fuzzy.

[Made of Ghosts]

Another really great episode.

I quite hope Rita does come back, because the actress struck me as really good: very believable even with the more awkward expository lines.

[Flub]

Moffat's/Smith's Doctor has before justified it by basically saying he finds it difficult to make decisions on his own, because to him the universe is just a bunch of stuff. He's seen pretty much everything many times over, travelling with people who haven't grounds him, stopping him from becoming too cold and detached. I think it's one of the earliest episodes with Pond in, she basically calls him a perv which he does not really deny, but instead qualifies by also saying 'I need to see the small picture' etc.

It's a special scene they filmed for the DVDs last series. You can watch it (and another one) on Youtube or last year in this very thead.

[Not Thread Owner]

Although I appreciate RTD bringing DW back. and I didn't hate everything he did, there are two things I wish he'd never done:

1) "Killed off" all the daleks, time lords and cybermen. As a result, everytime they come back it's like they've been magicked up out of nowhere.

2) Made the Doctor, the aliens, and their actions "visible" to everyone. I preferred it when there was a select few people (on Earth) who knew what was going on, but it was all pretty much "in secret". Now the whole world knows about aliens and The Doctor and everything, and it's just wrong.

I know with Moffat they've managed to tone down the second point a lot, but the damage was done. I was hoping the Pandorica's universe reboot could also fix these issues, but no.

[c-cat114]

Bearing in mind the damage Rusty Davros did to the Whoniverse I think Moffat's done wonders getting it back to where it is. I'm looking forward to his take on cybermen in a story of (hopefully) their own.

[Mogster]

2) Made the Doctor, the aliens, and their actions "visible" to everyone. I preferred it when there was a select few people (on Earth) who knew what was going on, but it was all pretty much "in secret". Now the whole world knows about aliens and The Doctor and everything, and it's just wrong.

I know with Moffat they've managed to tone down the second point a lot, but the damage was done. I was hoping the Pandorica's universe reboot could also fix these issues, but no.

Most of that damage has been neatly retconned by the cracks I think. Most people on Earth no longer know about nonsense like the Earth being moved.

[LaParka]

The Earth being towed, still the biggest moment for me.

[Flub]

The Earth being towed, still the biggest moment for me.

That one I can actually swallow. It makes sense given the Time Lords' abilities in general and moving planets was the focus back in Trial of a Time Lord.

[Harsin]

Yeah but I think when you envision that in your head you imagine some grand Larry Niven-esque endeavour. Not the Tardis pulling it like an AA van.

[El Pibe]

I thought that was good.

Not sure why everyone is so upset about Corden coming back, he was fine in the episode before. I hope Moffat does something good with the Cybermen.

[joeplus]

What a cracking episode, can barely pick a fault with it. Made me enjoy a character with silly make-up played by David Walliams, which is amazing work, really. Looking forward to next week as well - the Doctor's interaction with Craig in The Lodger was a highlight of last series.

Also, can I stick up for RTD a bit? I can understand disliking his weakness for grand nonsense, or taking umbrage with his treatment of canon (not an old Who fan so this isn't an issue for me) but I don't know why people never talk about his good stuff. I could name least ten episodes that I'm sure everyone would agree on as top-notch, plus there was Children of Earth. Yes he's very inconsistent, but I'm constantly surprised by the level of viciousness in this thread. Also, he can actually write and plot for female characters - Amy Pond has had nearly two seasons, and her personality has extended little beyond "sassy, attractive, does a lot of waiting".

And if there's anyone out there who's still upset over his "gay agenda", stop it. If you don't understand why it's good to have more gay people on TV, then you're ignorant, and if you genuinely find it "in-your-face" or "distracting" when gay characters make up more than 10% of a cast, you have a tolerance problem.

[lordcookie]

My issue with the gay characters in RTD episodes isn't their frequent inclusion but how badly they are handled. They are broad stereotypes and it is hard to believe they have been written by a gay man. He had a chance to write a fully rounded and interesting character that just happened to be gay but instead he just goes with the easier option each time of creating characters that want to just fuck each other. His depiction of gay characters isn't really any more sophisticated than their depiction in 1970s sitcoms and often the only function they serve in stories is their sexual orientation which seems a rather reductive way of handling the issue on a mainstream family show.

[Mogster]

My issue with the gay characters in RTD episodes isn't their frequent inclusion but how badly they are handled. They are broad stereotypes and it is hard to believe they have been written by a gay man. He had a chance to write a fully rounded and interesting character that just happened to be gay but instead he just goes with the easier option each time of creating characters that want to just fuck each other. His depiction of gay characters isn't really any more sophisticated than their depiction in 1970s sitcoms and often the only function they serve in stories is their sexual orientation which seems a rather reductive way of handling the issue on a mainstream family show.

Precisely. Just look at Jack in Miracle Day for a perfect example. In one scene he flirts with a waiter he's just met for about thirty seconds before spanking his arse and wandering off. If the waiter happened to be a woman, this would be seen as incredibly misogynistic and dated. Then there was the first Torchwood series where every single team member just happened to be bi-sexual.

[Harsin]

Moffat introduced three gay characters in prominent roles this season and nobody complained. Probably because, as Lord Cookie said, they were written as characters and not mincing caricatures.

[joeplus]

My issue with the gay characters in RTD episodes isn't their frequent inclusion but how badly they are handled. They are broad stereotypes and it is hard to believe they have been written by a gay man. He had a chance to write a fully rounded and interesting character that just happened to be gay but instead he just goes with the easier option each time of creating characters that want to just fuck each other. His depiction of gay characters isn't really any more sophisticated than their depiction in 1970s sitcoms and often the only function they serve in stories is their sexual orientation which seems a rather reductive way of handling the issue on a mainstream family show.

Well, that's a fair shout - it's certainly interesting that all RTD's best characters have been straight. Should make clear that I'm only having a go at the "get it out of my face" crowd.

[c-cat114]

Personally I thought that the overt sexualisation of Who by Rusty was one of his worst missteps. Especially the blowjob from a paving slab line which just felt massively out of place. Watching his run sitting next to a 11 year old daughter always felt like a game of Russian roulette, hoping he wouldn't dance over the line at just the wrong time. (That said I'm fully aware that Leela wasn't exactly playing for subtle motives and there was a certain amount of Carry On humour in classic Who that went over my head so for the most part it didn't bother me a great deal in either Rusty or so far Moffat's run). Even so the sexual agenda just seemed so ham-fistedly (wahay it's the gay line in an episode, Drink!) done by someone who had... a clear agenda (? As Cookie says it didn't exactly elevate anyone) rather than serving the story as a whole in mind.

Rusty had his good moments: Midnight was and is a corker of an ep, Turn Left was great and the episodes leading up to Donna's finale were nicely paced. Plus the fact that the return of Who must have been a political minefield throughout the production of the first series. Similarly he did show an over zealous excitement to be a part of it which was both endearing and frequently irritating. If we played a drinking game for every time he said 'brilliant' for something mediocre in Confidential half of the forum would be dead from consumption.

But so much of his run was stilted, stuck in two or three delivery mechanisms, stolen from others, poorly paced, poorly implemented and just so simplistically done that I can rarely find it in my to watch much of the Ecclestone/Tennant run. Turn Left, Midnight, Blink and so on aside the eps are astonishingly painful to watch, poorly directed and lit and written to an within an inch of six form fanboy what if poetry standard.

Some of the new stuff has weathered well: Davros was redesigned beautifully (and acted well), as were the Daleks and the Cybermen... but then they were placed into awful scripts that were an insult to any sort of scrutiny. Tennants final two parter - oh look there are two boxes with buttons in. And someone needs to be in one of the boxes at all times. What could possibly happen? Oh yes he jumps out of a space ship, through a stained glass window to confront the bad guy. Sorry. What? That's the plan? The Doctor was turned into a reacting moron, not a mad genius.

It reminds me of Jeunet's finale in Delicatessen but in exactly the opposite way. Jeunet writes an impossible predicament that you can't believe a solution to exists and applaud when he manages it (and which Moffat often gets close to achieving which is no mean feat) whereas Rusty creates situations that you don't ever believe have a solution and groan when he asks you to leap a chasm of incredulity to get to.

Also - it still annoys me when people point to Children of Man as a high point of his Who life. For a start Peter Capaldi was entirely the wrong choice for the character because, excellent actor as he is, you just kept expecting him to do a Tucker (when the meeting happened and someone said 'we need a civel servant, someone like Malcolm Tucker' you don't GET Malcolm Tucker because people then think it IS Malcolm Tucker) , the best bit of CoM was the alien in the tank (stolen with little camouflage from Independence Day and done better in that film) and the death of Ianto was yet another 'what's the plan?' 'run in here and say please stop' style moronic moments set up only so someone can die. Added to that the ending moments were a cynical grab at sympathy and emotion and felt callous, ugly and unearnt. CoM is indicative of Rusty's writing but never struck me as a high point of anything other than mean spirited exposition.

(sign, breathe in, rant over, sorry).

[joeplus]

Personally I thought that the overt sexualisation of Who by Rusty was one of his worst missteps. Especially the blowjob from a paving slab line which just felt massively out of place. Watching his run sitting next to a 11 year old daughter always felt like a game of Russian roulette, hoping he wouldn't dance over the line at just the wrong time. (That said I'm fully aware that Leela wasn't exactly playing for subtle motives and there was a certain amount of Carry On humour in classic Who that went over my head so for the most part it didn't bother me a great deal in either Rusty or so far Moffat's run). Even so the sexual agenda just seemed so ham-fistedly (wahay it's the gay line in an episode, Drink!) done by someone who had... a clear agenda (? As Cookie says it didn't exactly elevate anyone) rather than serving the story as a whole in mind.

I think "ham-fisted" can be looked at a different way. If there are characters whose sexual orientation isn't vital to the story, why not make loads of them gay? As long as gay characters are under-represented in TV & film (and they still are), I think it's OK to redress the balance. An "agenda" can be a positive thing, especially in a show watched by children.

Of course, some say that this spoiled the stories for them, but personally I never found that.

As for Rusty's writing, maybe I'm just easier to please. Yes, the sodding Slitheen, but then something like The Long Game or Midnight comes along and you see what he's capable of. I certainly never find it "painful to watch", it's usually a delight to revisit old episodes.

[Harsin]

What was behind Door 11?

[Sidewaysbob]

If Rex had wandered round picking up waitresses and anything in a skirt, to which we have 20 minutes of him making out ..... there would have been an outcry.

Jack sleeps with half of America for no apparent reason, and camps it up confirming every stereotype going and we're supposed to be grateful.

Then at the end it's a bloody great vagina thats going to kill the world and only by splashing the gay characters blood all over it will it be saved. There was a great story about the 3 families in there desperately trying to get out, but RTDs gay agenda got in the way. By all means have gay characters, but not just to camp around getting in the way of the story.

As for Who, it's fantastic. Possible the best episode I've seen since the Tom baker years

[Teabag]

The end of Torchwood was just ridiculous.

I could have just about accepted the giant rock vagina as a dramatic conceit if they'd found a reanimated Owen down there frantically rutting it.

I think RTD is just too big and scary to be script edited. The only notes I could imagine coming back on that final script would have been 'You do realise that even within the constraints of the fantastical premise you've created this makes no fucking sense at all, don't you?'

And to basically echo everyone else in here this last batch of Who episodes have been just stunning.