New Doctor Who

When The Waters of Mars airs, it will end the longest time period without a new Doctor Who story since the series returned in 2005. And, I'm telling you, it feels like it's been forever since Planet of the Dead. I've watched the trailer for TWOM so often, I can almost quote it.
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Nobody watched the clip I linked to?

After LotTL, RTD said that he did the ring scene with the express purpose of leaving it vague enough that the next writer could bring back the Master if he wanted. Well, as it turns out, he was the next writer.

Yes, but not like you think. As I understand, 10 will travel back to 2005 for some reason and see Rose at some point before 9 grabs her hand.

 

Just found this on the syfy.com Doctor Who forum.

I don't know what this means for seeing it on BBCAmerica, or Syfy, or whoever has the rights to show it at this point.

 

Don't I know it. It's not necessarily the time period between episodes as much as it is that there's only been 2 new Doctor Who stories since the S4 season finale. I think the break was there to give The Mighty Moff time to build his new team, cast a new Doctor and Companion, build a new TARDIS set and film the new episodes. It takes somewhere around 4 months or more to film a 13 episode season.

Yep, you read that right. The interior of the TARDIS will be different for S5. The exterior will be a bit different as well.

 

Actually, it hasn't changed much at all. In Classic Who, the TARDIS Console Room was always a fairly small, white room with the TARDIS Control Console in the middle. The first time we saw the Console Room be something other than a small, white room was in The Enemy Within when the 7th Doctor changed it.

It's highly unlikely they would ever get rid of the central column in the Control Console.

 

The movies with Peter Cushing playing Doctor Who (explicitly referred to by that name), Doctor Who and the Daleks and Dr. Who: Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., should not be considered as a part of the television series. The primary reason for this is because Doctor Who in those movies is a human, not a Time Lord. They aren't the same character.

No, the TARDIS Console Room was not different when Tom Baker regenerated into Peter Davison. There was a change when Peter Davison's Doctor installed a new Console in The 5 Doctors, but the room itself didn't change.

The plunger has always been a part of the Control Console.

 

The Waters of Mars aired in the UK last night and on my computer, via Youtube, last night. It's fantastic. You know an episode of DW is good when it stays with you the next day, which it has. Not since Turn Left has a DW story stayed with me through the next day.

Would like to write more, but don't want to risk spoiling it for anybody. The only thing I'll say that it's another example of RTD taking a what-if, one that I'd wondered about myself, and making it a great story.

 

I have no idea.

 

You have questions? I have answers.

Q. When do I get to see The Waters of Mars?
A. If you want to wait for it, The Waters of Mars airs on BBC America on December 19th at 9pm EST. If you don't want to wait for it, or you don't get BBC America, it looks like it's still up on Youtube. The caveat there is that the video I saw on Youtube a couple of weeks ago was pretty bad quality.


Q. When do I get to see The End of Time?
A. The End of Time, Part One will air on BBC One on December 25th. It will air on BBC America on December 26th.


Q. Part One? What about the Part Two?
A. The End of Time, Part Two will air on BBC on January 1st, 2010 and I assume on BBCAmerica on January 2nd.


Q. There's not a Part Three, is there?
A. There is no part three. Also, there is no spoon.


Q. How do you know all this?
A. Because I'm really smart. :smilewinkgrin:


Q. Really?
A. Yes, really.


Q. Ok, smartypants, when does the next season of Doctor Who start?
A. Sometime in the 2nd quarter of 2010 so I hear, which means it will start around the same time as the other seasons of Doctor Who started.


Q. Will this Matt Smith guy be as good as David Tennant?
A. It will take us some time, some more than others, to get used to a new Doctor, but I think Matt will be fantastic. I'm also excited to see where The Mighty Moff takes DW.


Q. Was Planet of the Dead one of the worst Doctor Who episodes you've ever seen?
A. Now that some time has passed since I've seen it, I've changed my mind about it. It's not particularly good. There are many episodes that I've watched over and over, such as Human Nature/Family of Blood, Blink, Silence in the Library/Forests of the Dead, etc. I've watched Planet of the Dead once and all it's getting is one viewing. I've even watched Journey's End more than once.


Q. Why does 10 say in Christmas Invasion that he doesn't give 2nd chances when that's all he's ever done?
A. There's 2 answers to this. #1, it's because RTD conveniently forgets that he wrote certain things. #2, maybe it's because the Doctor is afraid of what he might become if he didn't give 2nd chances. Maybe he thinks he would eventually become something like the "vengeful god" he spoke of in Parting of the Ways. By giving 2nd chances where none are deserved, he feels like he's making the extra attempt to not be the "vengeful god". Just a guess.


Q. Would it be more appropriate to call David Tennant the 10th and 11th Doctors and Matt Smith is actually #12?
A. Probably. After all, the Doctor really did regenerate at the end of The Stolen Earth. But, he's being called 11, so 11 he is.

While I'm thinking about it, I have a thought about Journey's End. When the Doctor found the Earth and all 26 other planets in the Medusa Cascade, he said they were all moved 1 second into the future, which is why he had such a hard time finding them. When the planets are taken back out of the Medusa Cascade, wouldn't they reset back to the time they were taken? Or, am I just way off here?

 

If you have BBCAmerica, find out when The End of Time Part One is on tomorrow and block out that time so you can watch it. It's beyond fantastic. If you don't have BBCAmerica, you can find it split up on Youtube. The quality of the video suffers at times, but it's totally worth watching anyway. Even though it means the end of David Tennant as Doctor, I haven't looked as forward to any Doctor Who episode as I am this one.

This is answered in The End of Time Part One.

Here's something from me a few pages ago.

*pats self on back*

Even though I was only partially right.

 

While I'm desperately waiting on The End of Time Part Two to be posted on Youtube, I was alerted to this posting of the new Season 5 trailer. Granted, it's just a trailer for the season, so it's supposed to look good. And it does.

FYI, we already knew that we would see River Song again, but we're also going to see the Weeping Angels again. Plus... the Daleks. Again. Maybe The Mighty Moff can do something interesting with them. I don't know about you all, but by Journey's End, I was sick of seeing the Daleks.

 

While I'm glad that RTD brought DW back and I think he did some good things during his time (especially the brilliance of how he brought the Master back in S3), I'm so glad he's gone. TEoT was a great example of the flaws that have dogged RTD's writing on this show, which became more and more apparent after S3. He continually focused on the empty spectacle and emotional manipulation at the expense of plot integrity and anything approaching logic or chain of events.

TEoT wasted the return of the Master; wasted the return of the Time Lords; wasted Donna Noble; and wasted the announcement that Rassilon was the Lord President at the end of the Time War (a little exposition would have been nice). At least he didn't make the mysterious Time Lady the Doctor's mother, or something else equally cliched and pointless. RTD is a writer that is clearly burned out writing for Doctor Who.

He went for the big splash of bringing the Master, Time Lords and Donna back, then didn't know how to get out of the corner he'd written himself into, so he just shoved them all aside so he could spend 20 minutes on yet another fanboy trip through the series before DT regenerated. Even the regeneration was total self-indulgence.

I thought the silly "I could do so much more" speech was reminiscent of Borus in The 5 Doctors, which isn't a good thing. The "universe singing to the Doctor" was cringe-worthy (can anybody explain the Ood magically appearing at the right time) and the actual regeneration took so long that, by the time it actually happened, I was saying, "Let's get on with it already!"

Now, I didn't dislike everything. The scenes with just David Tennant and Bernard Cribbins, in both Part 1 and Part 2, were fantastic. Tennant and Simm together are excellent also. Even with all of its flaws, Tennant made these 2 episodes worth watching.

The best part of the entire regeneration story was Matt Smith's frantic new moments as the Doctor. "I'm a girl! No! No! Not a girl. And still not ginger!"

This story ranks up there with The Stolen Earth/Journey's End as examples of stories that I think are some of the worst in the series. I hope Moffat handles these "epic" stories better during his time than RTD has.