DOCTOR WHO (2007): Episode Reactions

Heinrad · Post by **Heinrad** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 2:06 am

He is, I'll give you that. I loved him in Mallrats. And Dogma.

Just not sure I'm ready for him in Doctor Who.

Halfshell · Post by **Halfshell** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 12:31 pm

I enjoyed it. Twas naff in places, but Who's never really been about exceptional quality, has it?

Thought the plot was sound in principle, but fell down a little in the execution. The witches were godawful. As Cliffy says, exactly how many lost races from beyond the dawn of time that the Doctor has an extensive knowledge of can you get away with?

And points for the whole "meeting somebody for the first time when they've already met you" bit at the end. Rubbish in the execution, but points for intent. Tennant is still quality, though.

And I see the BBC are still employing the approach to Middle Ages haircare that they used for Robin Hood. Insomuch that everybody's got ****ing salon cuts.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 2:29 pm

Aye, there were a couple of nice ideas in there (such as the Love's Labour's Won bit, and the bit at the end) but none of it really came off for me. With the witches, I kept expecting a post-modern "these are just masks" thing, the make-up was so tacky... Shakespeare followed the same sort of route as every other historical celebrity we've had in the past two years, i.e. lots of opportunities for our heroes to Roger Moore at the audience, and really if that's all there was to offer...

I dunno, for me it was kind-of a collision of everything bad about the new series, with the noble exception of Tennant, who continues to make me care about bad plots (and do respectable jobs of bad scenes like the jumpstarting heart bit). Poor Freema, though. It took them half a season to relegate Rose to that level of pointlessness. Actually, Rose did more in this episode than Martha... Fitwitch knocks out Martha, Doctor doesn't give a ****... Fitwitch mentions Rose's name, and the Doctor goes all Bruce Willis on her arse. I mean, he died and everything (again), but the sentiment was there...

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 3:06 pm

Has the Doctor really not meet Queen Bess yet? I'm suprised there's never been even a throwaway reference to a meeting with her in the show before (he must have meet her in the books/audios at some point, so that's them ret conned). And you'd have thought that when Shakespear meets the Doctor after this he'd have mentioned this.

A mostly harmless but fun episodes, with the use of real locations giving it a nice "big" feel. Nice reference to the Eternals as well.

The reccurance of the ancient evils thing doesn't bother me because I think that's rather the point, with the Time Lords gone this sort of thing happens more often (not that it was that rare in the old show) and there's no one else left to stop it.

Post by **Denyer** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 6:29 pm

Originally posted by inflatable dalek
A mostly harmless but fun episodes, with the use of real locations giving it a nice "big" feel.

[...]

ancient evils [...] not that it was that rare in the old show

Yup. Enjoyed most of it.

SPOILER! (select to read)
Less keen on the CGI and will-date-rapidly futuristic stuff in the end of show trailer for next week, but hopefully the Head of Boe will have something to say about other Time Lords...

Oh, and I want to do bad things to the obsessive compulsives who add things like "The canonicity of [x] is unclear." to bloody everything on Wikipedia. Licensed fiction, dears. In a show in which past events regularly get ****ed around with.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 7:33 pm

I dunno, I just found the whole thing very close to "Unquiet Dead"... things creeping in, getting entangled with quotable writers, scientific explanations for mystical things, even the thing manifesting in a theatre was second-hand...

Post by **Denyer** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 8:06 pm

The difference for me with this series is that the shows actually feel like an hour's entertainment -- Unquiet Dead was "zip into London, no backgrounds or sense of life in the town, into a dark house, something happens, go home." More people, locations, and even lines packed into the script running time.

Doesn't hurt that I like this Doctor and companion more than the previous two mixes.

SPOILER! (select to read)
New Earth -based stuff, on the other hand... well, the last story had a spectacularly bad ending IMO. And the CGI looks like what it is, expensive-but-still-cheap CGI.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 8:13 pm

Originally posted by Denyer
"zip into Cardiff, no backgrounds or sense of life in the town, into a dark house, something happens, go home."

Fixed. Don't you remember Gwynnneff?

SPOILER! (select to read)
Yeh, the future Earth stuff's generally been pretty shocking, and another one of those strands RTD seems more interested in that anything else (dunno if he's the writer, but the scenario is his invention)... is it me, or does RTD regress at the start of each series to roughly where he was at the start of the last one?

Post by **Denyer** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 8:59 pm

You can tell how much attention I paid to Dickens at college, then...

Eve Myles didn't lift the episode out of the ever-present darkness that much. Conversely, Christina Cole works well in a Hammer Horror type setup.

Jetfire · Post by **Jetfire** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 11:22 pm

Originally posted by Denyer

Doesn't hurt that I like this Doctor and companion more than the previous two mixes.

I'm very muh enjoying them. Ecclestone and Piper were fantastic but esentially they were both stunt casting for the new series. Doc 9 and Rose were superb but tried a tad too hard. Doc 10 and Rose started in excellent fashion but then dwinled off as Rose jsut seemed to fit the stories less and less but they had a super end. Freema also coveys a inteligent person better and more naturally than Billie ever did.

The current Tardis team feel better togther, more natural. They were picked for their roles because they were right in the role rather than they might bring attention and ratings to a series the BBC had to get right.

As the ratings are super (This series is actually getting a better audience share and reversing the down ward trend of ratings decreasing year after year) they have slowly just put the best people for the parts.

Heinrad · Post by **Heinrad** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 3:21 am

Well, having watched it, I do have to say I liked it. It wasn't the best, but it could have been far, far worse.

Although I find it interesting that Martha picks up on the "I'm from the future, so I know it happened" stuff, but not the fact that she's speaking Elizabethian English without a problem at all.

As for the story itself...... It did seem a lot like the Unquiet Dead, in concept if not in tone. I did love the Marx Brothers reference, though.

Alpha Trion · Post by **Alpha Trion** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 3:24 am

Originally posted by inflatable dalek
he must have meet her in the books/audios at some point, so that's them ret conned)

A quick search on a few Who canon sites don't bring up any stories with her. Either way though, I can't see the merit of disregarding hundreds of novels and audios because of something so negligible. Any error that can't be easily worked around can just be chalked up the Doctor's very own Superboy-Prime; the Time War.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 4:35 pm

It does effectively ignores the Big Finish audio's Time of the Daleks (with Shakespear as a boy going on a trip in the Tardis, that one can be explained by the Time War tm) and The Kingmaker (comedy farce in which Shakespear is a comedy Brumie who- through through hitching a lift on the Tardis to prove that Richard III did kill the Princes, dies at the Battle of Bosworth and has to be replaced by the hunchback king).

I think a big problem with the episode was the portrayal of Shakespear as a guy who nicked all his best lines from the Doctor. Whilst that's certainly broadly in keeping with what we know of the real bard (most of his plays were adaptions of older works after all) it doesn't gel with the stories constant reiterance of the fact Shakespear supposedly has the most amazing and brilliant brain of anyone who ever lived.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 4:55 pm

I've never really been keen on that sort of thing full-stop - the sort-of "everything is history's down to the Doctor" sort of thing (it's one of the few things in Timelash I really don't like...)... It's difficult to articulate without sounding stupid, but here we go anyway - it just sticks in my craw a little when a minor writer like Gareth Roberts can even joke about the idea of Shakespeare (who, for the record I don't like) plagiarising from their script... Yeh, I know, that makes no sense whatsoever, the idea's just seemed a little disingenuous, like all that name-dropping the Doctor used to do.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 5:05 pm

It's the sort of thing that if you were to do it with a living writter (Doctor Who meets a young JK Rowling and gives her all her ideas whilst fighting aliens that are exactly like Wizards but with a thin SF rational) they'd probably sue. Mind, Quantum Leap got away with doing it to Stephen king).

Oh, and someone's forgotten the extra year added to the "Present day" stories back in Aliens In London, Martha should have already read Harry Potter VII. Mind, there's no reason for her present not being 2007 rather than next year, but in that case there's really nothing to stop the Doctor running into Jackie on the street when he takes Martha home

I did like the random Silver Nemesis references though (not sure if the cameo by a Queen Elisabeth was another one or just dictated by the period). "Walk like you own the place."

like all that name-dropping the Doctor used to do.

Still does, "My mate Ben Franklin..."

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 5:44 pm

Like all Bad Things, it's 200% more irritating and noticeable when Pertwee did it... Personally, I just always think it makes the Doctor sound like a wanker, and that the series should be above such cheap shots for humour than "Writer X had no original ideas whatsoever, and was in fact something of a blundering idiot"...

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 5:52 pm

I've just read that there's now a real chance this weeks episode will be pulled if the FA Cup overruns-

SPOILER! (select to read)
Which would effectively bugger the Radio Times Cover for the following week's Daleks In Manhatten (I still say it should be Daleks take Manhatten...).

A SF show moved for sport? What is this, BBC2 in 1995?

I always found it odd that the Monk doing things like having tea with leonardo and giving him ideas is a BAD THING but the Doctor doing exactly the same is harmless fun.

Post by **Denyer** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 7:26 pm

Spoiler tags if the ep title is that blatant.

Jetfire · Post by **Jetfire** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 8:33 pm

Originally posted by Denyer
Spoiler tags if the ep title is that blatant.

I don't think it can be a spoiler if it's on the front of a national magazine, the giveaway is in the title and the appearence was already in the preview of the Christmas episode.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 8:36 pm

Originally posted by Jetfire
I don't think it can be a spoiler if it's on the front of a national magazine

Which magazine now? Haven't seen the spoiler [nice one Denyer, would rather not have Esclataion and Who spoiler avoidance compromised in one fell swoop...], but the only thing on the front of any of the mags out today is that Ardal O'Hanlon's in it this week (Radio Times). And we have an "upcoming stuff" thread to keep the other stuff in...