New Doctor Who

Before "The Christmas Invasion", I didn't know anything about Catherine Tate. Had never heard of her. When TCI started, she was a shrill harpy that I didn't like. By the time TCI ended, I had grown to like her, which is a testament to a) good writing and b) CT's acting skills.

Now, after "Turn Left", I think she may be the best actress we've ever seen in Doctor Who. To use an analogy that my non-American friends may not get, when it comes to acting skill, Billie Piper and Freema Agyeman are in AAA and Catherine's in the majors. No disrespect intended to BP and FA either, because I like them both very much. I just think CT is that good of an actress.

I'm both looking forward and not looking forward to the last 2 episodes. I'm looking forward to them because I think they'll be fantastic. I'm not looking forward to them because we won't get to see David Tennant and Catherine Tate on-screen together anymore.

For all the negativity towards RTD's writing in LotTL last year, he has really come through this year with a couple of truly excellent stories in "Midnight" and "Turn Left".

 

*here there be spoilers

Easy, Pete. It's the hand. I suspect the hand will come into play for 2 reasons. #1, it will mean that the Doctor keeps the same physical form. #2, and most importantly, it will keep him from post-regeneration trauma that he usually suffers from.

Prediction: The last scene of Journey's End will find the Doctor in the 51st century, feeling sad because of whatever happens to Donna and because Rose will still be trapped in the Age of Steel universe. Who will he meet? None other than Professor River Song. To her, it will be their first meeting.

DT will become the first actor to play 2 different incarnations of the Doctor, 10 and 11.

Elisabeth was fantastic not only on her reaction to the Exterminate message, but also when she heard Davros' voice.

* end spoilers

 

Here's how crazy Skiffy's schedule is. "Journey's End" hit UK TV's on 7/5 but won't be on Skiffy until this next Friday, 8/1. Since I just don't want to write in spoiler colors anymore, because it's more work for me, I'll weigh in on Journey's End after next Friday. I know everybody's waiting with baited breath for what I have to say. :laugh: :smilewinkgrin:

 

Oh no, Pete. That was horrible.

Let's pretend that post never happened. :thumbs:

I see that I never gave my thoughts about Journey's End. I'm not sure those are going to happen anytime soon. I was actually a bit sad watching JR, because it felt like something great was ending, which is sad in and of itself. I also watched it at a time when I already knew that I was going to be moving to a new state, so the ending of things felt even more poignant than maybe it really was.

But, the real reason I'm not sure what to say about TSE/JE is that I'm not a good enough writer to explain my thoughts very well. Even with the silliness of Tinkerbell Jesus Doctor in Last of the Time Lords, I sort of liked that finale. Over a year later, and I still think it's a haunting idea, that of the Master controlling the entire planet. In TSE/JE, the reality bomb was almost sheer lunacy. I think RTD felt the S4 finale had to be bigger, so he put it on the scale of universal destruction, but, in the end, one of the main ideas RTD used to pitch Doctor Who was proven correct.

Back when RTD pitched the revival of Doctor Who to the BBC, he said that most of the stories would be centered around Earth. He said that if you have the Zog Monster threatening the Zog people on the Planet of Zog, nobody would care. But, if you have the Zog Monster threatening the last of humanity on the Planet of Zog, then people care.

In The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords, it felt personal. Like it was happening to you and your family. In fact, I had nightmares in the week between SoD and LotTL that the Toclafane really were coming after me and my family and I wasn't able to defend them. In The Stolen Earth/Journey's End, I didn't feel it personally, so it didn't resonate like SoD/LotTL did. Maybe that's why I liked SoD/LotTL so much more than TSE/JE.

If you're into ranking seasons, and who isn't, where do you put S4? I think S1 and S2 are 3rd and 4th, respectively, but I'm undecided about S3 and S4. The Muppets... er, the Daleks in Manhattan drags S3 down, but the final 5 episodes of S3, beginning with Human Nature, make up for it. OTOH, Catherine Tate was brilliant throughout S4. On the 3rd hand, I liked SoD/LotTL better than TSE/JE (see above). Then again, let's not get into the major plot hole(s) of Turn Left.

All in all, I think I put S3 ahead of S4, but not by much.

 

The recapper for Doctor Who on Televisionwithoutpity.com said this about Human Nature/Family of Blood.

Of course, I completely agree.

I don't quite understand all the love for Blink that isn't given to Human Nature/Family of Blood. I like Blink, but HN/FoB is better and Blink has that problem in it that I've written about before and really bothers me. I also like HN/FoB because, not only was it fantastic, but it also setup the Chameleon Arch so well. If RTD had tried to shoehorn the Chameleon Arch into Utopia or Sound of Drums, I think it would have been clumsy and ineffective and we would have seen it as nothing more than a plot device. By using it in a story, we didn't see it as a simple plot device. Same thing with the time trick of Blink and even Smith and Jones, where the Doctor went back in time and affected Martha before she even knew him.

Yes, it did. When the rumors started up last year that Davros was going to be in S4, I conjured up a possible storyline. My storyline was that the Daleks didn't attack the Time Lords just to exterminate them, but that they were actually after something, namely the Cruciform, which was first mentioned by the Master in Sound of Drums.

I had this whole thing worked out where the Cruciform was the one point where all the universes meet and if you could control that, you could go into any universe you wanted to. The Daleks wanted it because they could conquer the whole of creation, which refers back to the exact phrase that the Doctor used in Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways when he was talking about the Time War. In my story, we would have learned that when the Daleks took control of the Cruciform, that was the impetus for the Doctor sending the Eye of Harmony into the Gallifreyan sun and causing the supernova that destroyed both the Daleks and the Time Lords. It was how he made the entire Dalek fleet burn.

I don't know how I would have brought Davros back, but it would have involved Caan, just as it did in TSE/JE. My first episode cliffhangar would have seen the Doctor and Davros meeting up, and Davros showing off his newly created army of Daleks, who would have blasted him and he would have used his severed hand to regenerate without changing, just as he did in the actual story. My story would also not have the over the top performance by Davros. Any time you have maniacal laughter by the bad guy, it reduces the story to sheer silliness. All I could think of when Davros did his maniacal laughter is, "Yes, we get it. Davros is insane. We don't need to be beat over the head to understand." We needed a Michael Wisher-like performance from the actor playing Davros and, sadly, we didn't get it.

I think my story makes more sense and it wouldn't have been CompanionFest '08.

BTW, I can't figure out what the Doctor and Rose are talking about when they ask Gwen about her ancestry. What are they referring to?

 

S1 is very good. Father's Day, The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances are 3 of the great episodes in the season.

I saw it on Amazon.com for $77.

 

Chris Eccleston gets high marks around here.