New Doctor Who

[Matt Black]

My review of Season 2 (can't remember the names of all the episodes)

1. New Earth - weak; particularly the poor SFX of the plagues

2. The werewolf one - good

3. School reunion - brilliant

4. The Girl in the mirror - good

5&6. Rise of the Cybermen/ Age of Steel - good

7. The TV/ Wire episode - OK

8&9 The Impossible Planet and the Satan Pit - very good but I didn't like the quasi-supernatural elements; there was also too much nicked from Event Horizon

10 Love and Monsters - didn't like it. Nice conceptual try - looking at the Doc from the POV of a fan club, but it didn't work IMO; the ending with the girl on the paving slab was silly.

11. Fear Her - didn't like - Mark Gatiss seems to specialise in these kind of quasi-possession stories (he wriote the one about the Gelf too) and that kind of thing just doesn't do it for me

12&13 the Finale - brilliant!! Cybermen vs Daleks ("Stephen Hawking versus the Speaking Clock")

 

[Pete]

Love & Monsters.....

.....Now WHAT was THAT?!?! :BangHead:

Sure 8.5-9/10 for the idea, but execution.....1 or 2 if that (except for Jackie telling off Elton, best she has been I think...correction, just remembered Father's Day from last series)

But come on, how many more Slitheen "gas exchange" style scenes are we going to get?

Just looked through the episode list of this series again, and this is definitely the pothole of the batch so far. Thankfully reviews suggest the worst is over

 

[ccrobinson]

Love & Monsters started off silly and ended even worse.

"You said to use the blue one."

"I said Not the blue one."

Follow this up with the cartoon-style chase scene, and silliness abounds. I thought the first half of the story was fine. Then, Kennedy showed up and the episode went downhill and was ridiculous at the end.

I liked Fear Her, but Army of Ghosts/Doomsday is, as Matt put it, brilliant. :thumbs:

 

[Pete]

Saw it mentioned on gallifreyone somewhere that the Keystone Time Lord sequence was Elton's mixed up recollection of events. I can buy that.

I generally liked the Doctor fan gathering, reminded me of this thread :smilewinkgrin:

But yeah once the episode decided to crash and burn it didn't mess about doing it:tonofbricks: Oh well, soon the Army of Ghosts/Doomsday double.....but after that we lose Rose :BangHead:

 

[Matt Black]

The other great line from the Doomsday finale that I loved was "This is not war - this is pest control"

 

[Pete]

Feel the olympic love....

 

[ccrobinson]

For us American Whovians, Sci-Fi will be showing the 2nd season beginning next Friday, the 29th.

 

[Matt Black]

Feel the olympic love....

Agreed. Huw Edwards (a genuine BBC newsreader) had some truly dreadful cringeworthy lines

 

[ccrobinson]

When the runner fell down, he said, "... this means that the Olympic dream is dead." After the Doctor picked up the torch, I couldn't catch all that he said, but this is how the line ended, "... it's courage and it's love."



Shouldn't somebody have stopped them at this point and pointed out how nobody ever really talks like this, even for the Olympics?

Where's that barfing smiley when I really need it? :smilewinkgrin:

 

[Pete]

Where's that barfing smiley when I really need it? :smilewinkgrin:

Oh well, reviews (walkthroughs) I've read of the Army of Ghosts/Doomsday finale say they go out with a bang, so hopefully it's big enough bang to erase memories of the down moments they've had this season

 

[ccrobinson]

We've talked about Christmas Invasion already but I mention it again because Sci-Fi aired both "Christmas Invasion" and "New Earth" last Friday. CI was a solid performance by Tennant as the Doctor. If Eccleston had stayed longer, I think he would have been a tougher act to follow, and he was pretty tough as it was.

I think my favorite scene was the Doctor and Jackie when the Doctor needed something.

"I need... I need... I need.. I need you to shut up!"
"He hasn't changed that much."


In NE, was the point of Cassandra, aka Trampolina, to be a sympathetic figure at the end, or just pitiful and pathetic? If the idea was sympathy, it failed, because I thought she was just pathetic, weaselly and selfish to the end. Rose's line, "So, you're talking out of your ar**", was a hoot. Echoing Matt, it was a weak story, but the special effects didn't really register with me because I'm used to weak special effects on Doctor Who, the Ecclestone season notwithstanding.

School Reunion is this week and, not to hijack the thread, I'm also going to try very hard to watch the new season of Battlestar Galactica as well. Are there enough fans of BG here to start a new thread about it?

 

[Pete]

The promise Tennant (and the writers come to think of it) showed in Christmas Invasion was HUGE. The Doctor's show-down with the Sycorax and Arthur Dent reference thrown in was almost up to the standard of the best of the Eccleston series. Since then though the writers & DT have only hit that level a few times.

Last year even if the writers messed up (Cassandra originally a boy and husband references, the Slitheen family "gas exchange", or Capt Jack), their good writing combined with Eccleston's performances made up for it. EG the Doctor telling the Dalek to die, with the "You would make a good Dalek" response. From Empty Child/Doctor Dances "one damp little island says no, not here", "I've got something sonic...ok it's a screwdriver", "Go to your room, I'm very cross with you", "I'm here, are you my mummy?". The last meal scene with CE & Margaret the Slitheen in Boom Town. The "I'm coming to get you", "You have no weapons, no plan", "Yeah, and doesn't that scare you to death" from Bad Wolf....to name a few. This year we got Love & Monsters :BangHead: :smilewinkgrin: Just glad Eccleston wasn't around for that one.



I'm a real BG fan (1978) Have the series on DVD and would rather watch the same battle scenes over and over in every episode than that new thing. I kept forcing myself to sit through the new one last year, not even bothering with it this year.

 

[ccrobinson]

Don't forget this from School Reunion.

Rose: Oh my God they're rats, dozens of rats, vacuum packed rats.
The Doctor: And you decided to scream.
Mickey: It took me by surprise.
The Doctor: Like a little girl.
Mickey: It was dark, I was covered in rats.
The Doctor: Nine, maybe ten years old, I'm seeing pigtails, frilly skirt...


:laugh:

 

[ccrobinson]

Pete, do you think that Ecclestone's season was the best season of Doctor Who, ever? Tennant's first season had the School Reunion, Age of Steel, Army/Doomsday, but Love&Monsters does detract from the overall season. There were no bad stories in Ecclestone's season, so what do you think? Is CE's season the best ever of Dr. Who?

 

[Pete]

cc, that scene from School Reunion was one of this season highlights I was thinking of Also the "drunk" scene and saving the day at end of The Girl in the Fireplace, the "Any IDIOT could do it" section from The Age of Steel, "no power on the Earth that can stop me now" from Idiot's Lantern, and "ok, turn it on then, I'll sit here and watch" from Army of Ghosts. Doomsday tomorrow night here, based on reviews on the web I'll probably forgive them for a lot of the dud moments they came up with this year

Generally this year I think Billie has been stealing the show from DT. New companion next year has big boots to fill.

Eccleston himself managed to become my favourite Doctor last year (sorry Tom and Jon). Refreshing my memory now at gallifreyone.com and my vote for best season either goes to CE or season 12, Tom Baker's first season (Robot, The Ark in Space, The Sontaran Experiment, Genesis of the Daleks, Revenge of the Cybermen).

...With my best story vote going to either the Pertwee finale Planet of the Spiders, Tom's Genesis of the Daleks or Ark in Space, or CE's End of the World/Dalek/Father's Day/Empty Child - Doctor Dances.

 

[Matt Black]

The 'drunk' scene in Girl was pretty good, esp Rose's line :"Oh, my, look what the cat dragged in" when she and Mickey are being threatened with being sliced up

 

[ccrobinson]

Doomsday tomorrow night here, based on reviews on the web I'll probably forgive them for a lot of the dud moments they came up with this year

I'm not sure Love&Monsters is forgiveable, but for any other lame moment, such as New Earth, you will forgive TPTB after watching Doomsday. I do have one minor quibble with Doomsday, but I'll say no more because I'll spoil it for you.

I need to spend some time looking up all the seasons, but that season you mentioned with Genesis of the Daleks and Revenge of the Cybermen is a great one. I think Genesis is the best story of Tom's era and it may be the best overall.

And, going into the Who universe for a moment, Genesis takes on new significance considering what we've learned about the Time War. Genesis of the Daleks looks like a pre-emptive strike by the Time Lords against the Daleks. It did buy them another 1,000 years or so before the Daleks had become advanced enough to start the war.

I'm curious to know whether you see the same issue with Doomsday that I do. I generally can't wait for the end of work on Fridays anyway, but even more so on Doctor Who Fridays. :thumbsup:

 

[Pete]

Doomsday = 10/10.

Although CE was a better Doctor I couldn't see him pulling off those last few minutes in "Bad Wolf Bay" as well as DT did.

OK, you've got me, what issue? (Oh hang on, refering to void between universes as "Hell"?)


So any guesses what they'll do with the bride? Maybe our universe version of the one "upgraded" in Age of Steel?

 

[ccrobinson]

Here's the issue I have.

How did Pete know that he needed to jump dimensions to catch Rose before she got sucked into the Void? Was it just intuition or Deux ex Machina by the writers to give Rose a hero exit without killing her off? Or, did I just miss a plausible explanation?

So any guesses what they'll do with the bride? Maybe our universe version of the one "upgraded" in Age of Steel?

That's a better guess than anything I can think of.

BTW, I was wrong about last night's story. It was Tooth and Claw, not School Reunion. That story does bring up a good question. Why didn't the Doctor know anything about Torchwood if it had been around for over 100 years? In Christmas Invasion, Harriet Jones talked about a ship that had crashed 10 years earlier. That technology is what they used to destroy the Sycorax. Maybe Torchwood only came into its own in the mid-90s when the Doctor wasn't seen on Earth as much?

 

[Pete]

Oh yep, yeah, maybe just a _tad_ convenient for Pete to show up when he did, and to get Rose back to other universe with him instead of both being dragged into the void....Unless there was a bit of discussion (Pete and Jackie discuss? ok, fighting then) in the other universe and Pete came back to get Rose. The old hero shows up just in time to rescue the girl tied up on train tracks from train trick

But I guess they had to do what they could to keep Rose in character without killing her off to seperate her from The Doctor. Last year they killed some good minor characters here and there, but there probably would have been riots if they offed Rose. The idea is almost like killing Sarah Jane.


The "what did Who know about Torchwood and when" question though is just one of those things that's like a ride through the swamp of time-travel paradoxes in a monster truck....about all you get get out of it is messed up and muddy I was reading a Who fan site going back a bit and the arguments on what is canon and the hows and whys and whens of everything that has happened would give anyone a headache. Worse than the BB