Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol and 2011 Season(s?) Thread.

Jetfire · Post by **Jetfire** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 8:15 pm

inflatable dalek wrote:
And is Eyepatch woman's plot completely pointlessly stupid or is it just me? All she needs is someone to come out the lake with a gun and shoot him. Why the whole Machiavelli routine? She's got some soldiers who could do it for her. Or even just grab the gun and do it herself.

Maybe it's something to do with River's timelord half being able to stop his regenerations or something, or the fact they know the Doctor won't kill her so she can keep coming at him.

Heinrad · Post by **Heinrad** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 8:30 pm

I think my big issue with the Cybus design is that it really works best when they aren't on the back foot. He's practically got government sanction, and hordes of upgrades stomping around might be a bit worrisome, but hey, the people we put in office says these are a good thing, and they wouldn't steer us wrong, would they?

Admittedly, 'our' Cybermen don't sneak around terribly well, either, what with being 7 feet tall and shiny(really, REALLY shiny in Silver Nemesis), but they don't clank and stomp around, either.

I do like the fact that the Cybus-inspired redesign has gotten rid of their one major weak point, and if these guys get their act together, glitter-gun proof Cybermen would certainly make the Cyber wars a lot more interesting.

Maybe some kind of quieter hybrid Mondasian/Telosian/Cybusian Cyberman? Then they can come up with intricate and sadly rubbish plans without getting stumbled upon by somebody investigating the noise?

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 7:04 am

Jetfire wrote:Maybe it's something to do with River's timelord half being able to stop his regenerations or something, or the fact they know the Doctor won't kill her so she can keep coming at him.

as inflatable dalek says, anyone in the space suit would provoke a similar reaction in the doctor - he would try and reach out to whom ever was in the suit. i think eye patch lady's plan to use melody pond as a weapon is purely out of a sense of sadism and cruel revenge. god knows what the doctor did to p*ss her off, but it must have been something horrendous. it would be nice to find out what it was just to add a bit more too her than 'evil villainess', doesn't have to be much, just a line of dialogue or something.

i just think its a bit odd that we've not really seen the doctor do much to prevent his own death - he seems to be going through the motions and resigned to his own death. so why go to all the effort of sending out invites to his own death...? hmm....

this weeks ep was a bit slight, and not quite as good as last year's 'The Lodger', but fun. Perhaps would have worked better if it didn't feature the Cybermen, but then we'd be in clockwork robot territory i suppose.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 7:27 am

hmm, as with the Monster Mash last year it really does feel like the villains just aren't trying very hard with their evil plot to get rid of the Doctor. Have the soldiers charge up the beach with gun and swords, shoot the Doctor full of holes, hack him to bits and then stomp them into the ground. Before starting a big fire. That's what I'd do.

What made the Doctor decide that now was the time he had to go to America? He was told the date it happened, but not when in her personal timeline.

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 7:21 pm

Well he had the date time and place from the numbskulls robot...

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 7:34 pm

Skyquake87 wrote:Well he had the date time and place from the numbskulls robot...

Yeah, but that just told him the date in history, he's a time traveller! How'd he know to wait a hundredish (or whatever the age difference was back in episode 1) years of his own life before going? Why was he acting like he had to go now with his time run out when he could have hung round with Craig for a month if he'd needed too and still gone and seen that big visual treat he'd wanted to catch before going to America in 2011.

ΩΩΩ · Post by **ΩΩΩ** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 7:36 pm

He'd already decided it was time to stop running (cf the first episode of the season. Series. Whatever they call it nowadays.)

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Sun Oct 02, 2011 9:04 am

The series six finale! Mad as a box of frogs, and it was the numbskulls all along! Who'd have thought. With so many duplicates flying around this series, it's easy to loose track. There are still some ponderances i have though... Who drew the Tardis off course and blew it up? Why did that special agent dude turn against Rory, Amy, The Doctor and River and hunt them down? Eye patch lady retained her position as an underused villain, i suppose its enough to know that the Doctor did something to really upset her, but with so little to go on it was difficult to see her as a big bad. I did like Amy leaving her though. Good scene. I might have to watch again, but I'd like to know what the Silence creatures are. Did they have a proper name? Hmm...I liked Dorian the head in a box. Its a shame he got beheaded i like the character and would like to see him again. The question as well, that was good - the question he's been running from his whole life... "Doctor...who?" "Just 'The Doctor' "

This is abit rambly, but this how my brain works...the live chess scene i thought was funny enough without the conceit of electrified chess pieces and the skulls were suprisingly grisly. My only criticism was that the finale felt very much the samae as last years, with everything becoming undone because of the Doctor. lovely mention of the Brig passing away too - very nicely done.

Rack 'n Ruin · Post by **Rack 'n Ruin** » Sun Oct 02, 2011 4:55 pm

OK, now I'm really confused (and a bit frustrated).

SPOILER! (select to read)
I'm struggling with this "fixed point in time" where the Doctor dies. He doesn't actually die because he is inside the Teselecta. OK. So did he ever truly die at 5:02 pm at Lake Silensio, or is the whole fixed point death thing based upon hearsay from the (carefully arranged) witnesses who think he dies then and there? An how the bejeebus is the Teselecta able to replicate the start of the regeneration sequence (with all the shooty shooty light things and all)? Advanced tech and all that, yeah, but really???

The way the Doctor cheats death is rather dull, as well. But hey ho. I'd expected a flesh Doctor, but I guess that would've gone <PLOP> when shot, wouldn't it?

I'm also a bit frustrated as the whole Silence arc has not developed as much as I'd hoped, and is still not only unresolved but also very undefined. They are mighty scary villains though. Moffat's Daleks?

ΩΩΩ · Post by **ΩΩΩ** » Sun Oct 02, 2011 5:04 pm

Discarding spoiler tags on the assumption anybody in here has seen it by now, and I'll get confused if I try to do this without.

Rack 'n Ruin wrote:I'm struggling with this "fixed point in time" where the Doctor dies. He doesn't actually die because he is inside the Teselecta. OK. So did he ever truly die at 5:02 pm at Lake Silensio, or is the whole fixed point death thing based upon hearsay from the (carefully arranged) witnesses who think he dies then and there?

River shooting the Teselecta is a fixed point in time. It happened, it always happens, it can't be changed. But because the Teselecta was disguised as the Doctor, everybody simply believes that it was the Doctor she shot. And because it's a fixed point, everybody assumes that the death of the Doctor is a fixed point. There is a fixed point in time at that location at that moment which involves River in the astronaut suit shooting a robot that everybody believed to be the Doctor, and it cannot be altered. It's quite straightforward.

An how the bejeebus is the Teselecta able to replicate the start of the regeneration sequence (with all the shooty shooty light things and all)? Advanced tech and all that, yeah, but really???

It's a time travelling shapeshifting robot able to mimic the exact appearance of anyone down to the material composition of their attire, along with their voice, whilst simultaneously giving warmth and shelter to a crew of people contained within a miniaturisation field. A minor light show is nothing.

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Sun Oct 02, 2011 5:32 pm

and it demonstrated the ability to form complex moving parts when it made a motorcycle for itself!!!

i'd agree that the Silence are underdeveloped, hopefully we will see more of them in the future. i found the whole set up about eliminating the doctor pretty much the same. you get these tantalising glimpses of what they're about, but it's side tracked by River Song. minor grumbles though...sometimes its nice not have everything explained...

Heinrad · Post by **Heinrad** » Sun Oct 02, 2011 9:29 pm

I was hoping for Emperor Churchill on a war mammoth.........

Nicely done and quite mad. And it takes the series back to it's roots. No more "Bad Wolf', "Lonely God', "Last of the Time Lords' stuff", scary guy carreening around through time and space and laying waste to civilizations as he goes, just the Doctor back to being the Doctor, righting the wrongs on a small scale. Barring the odd Dalek fleet or Cyber-incursion, anyway.

Although the "Doctor Who?" bit is a slight worry. It harkens back to the Cartmel Master Plan concept, and I'm not even sure Carmel had an ultimate end point in mind for it.

Did anybody catch "Death is the only answer"?

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Tue Oct 04, 2011 7:15 am

The whole show was stolen by the very lovely Brig tribute, short and understated (befitting the Brig) but still touching and managed to be an big part of the plot by bringing the Doctor up short. I'd assumed by this stage we weren't getting the expected dedication to him and, though not as loudly irate as some people have been about it, was still disappointed at what seemed a huge oversight. Nice to be wrong.

And I suspect the fact it happened in a story where everyone was wearing an eyepatch would have tickled Nick's sense of humour.

The rest of it felt very familiar though, the disaster causing a broken collapsing alternate timeline was basically a much more expensive seeming version of the world without stars last year. The only real surprise, and I have to put my hands up here and say I was completely fooled despite the fact it should have been really obvious as soon as the Numbskulls came back, was who really got shot on that beech.

Though did I miss an explanation of what happened to the crew? I hope they weren't burnt to ashes, but if they beamed off before the funeral pyre, shouldn't they, as upholders of the law, get River's murder conviction quashed? Though I wasn't sure if her being able to visit Amy right after the Angel's story (from her POV) meant she at least got a pardon for helping out there as she was hoping at the end of that episode?

As others have said, lots of things are still unexplained (most obviously the exploding Tardis last year). And considering this was promoted as a way to launch a fresh start with very little carry over that's worrying.

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 8:42 pm

Suprised to read in the latest doctor who magazine that behind the scenes support show doctor who confidential has been axed by the beeb as part of its money saving plans.that'll make the extras on next years box set very slender,providing of course that anything gets made next year.steven moffat's production notes column is very woolly about whats actually being done in terms of making the show for the last four months and the big book of doctor who 2012 initially states that there will only be a handful of episodes next year before contradicting itself in an interview with moffat later in the book...

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 9:03 pm

I can actually see why Confidential has gone, it's basically the same fairly generic show every week, it's easy to see why the non fanboy audience has moved away from it after seven years. It'd be nice considering the silly RRP's if the DVD's and Blu Rays could actually spare the cash to make their own special features...

I'm still slightly baffled as to what is happening next year as well, there does seem to be something very odd going on behind the scenes there. Though with Smith casually mentioning in that MTV interview he'll be off to America after the next run perhaps there's some sort of cunning plot to drag his 13 episode commitment out over the next decade?

Post by **Denyer** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 9:16 pm

It'd be interesting to see some interaction between the various regenerations, if there's left-over contracting.

Tetsuro · Post by **Tetsuro** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 10:57 pm

inflatable dalek wrote:The whole show was stolen by the very lovely Brig tribute, short and understated (befitting the Brig) but still touching and managed to be an big part of the plot by bringing the Doctor up short. I'd assumed by this stage we weren't getting the expected dedication to him and, though not as loudly irate as some people have been about it, was still disappointed at what seemed a huge oversight. Nice to be wrong.

Anyone else get the feeling that was written in out of guilt for not offering Nicholas Courtney to appear as the Brig one final time when they still had the chance?

Post by **Denyer** » Tue Nov 08, 2011 12:25 am

They'd sort of already ticked the box with the SJA episode, when he filled in for Freema Agyeman... and he was pencilled in to work with David Tennant on the same show, but not well enough to when it started filming.

It's doubtful he'd have been able to take part with the Matt Smith series.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Tue Nov 08, 2011 7:09 am

Plus, none of the current main production team were involved in the show when Courtney's health would have permitted a cameo.

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Tue Nov 08, 2011 9:13 am

inflatable dalek wrote:I can actually see why Confidential has gone, it's basically the same fairly generic show every week, it's easy to see why the non fanboy audience has moved away from it after seven years. It'd be nice considering the silly RRP's if the DVD's and Blu Rays could actually spare the cash to make their own special features...

I'm still slightly baffled as to what is happening next year as well, there does seem to be something very odd going on behind the scenes there. Though with Smith casually mentioning in that MTV interview he'll be off to America after the next run perhaps there's some sort of cunning plot to drag his 13 episode commitment out over the next decade?

True, 2Entertain do good work for the Classic releases (well , in the main, some of the more ... open university stuff like the location histories i could do without...) so here's hoping they fill the gap.

I do find it odd that there's been no official word on what is actually happening next year. At this rate, we'll be find out on the 'Next Time' trailer at the end of the Christmas Special. That's a bit rubbish. In some ways, I kind of miss the fuss that RTD would make about the show and the way he communicated with fans and the media. He didn't give much away, but at least you felt like you were in the loop. This last year has felt like a very chaotic and uncertain time. Boo.