Doctor Who 2012 / 2013 Series 7 or whatever it is

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Tue Sep 18, 2012 9:18 am

Hmm 'A Town Called Mercy'...not Whithouse's best Who script, but a much better morality play than the earlier 'Boom Town'. Favourite scene was The Doctor, Amy and Rory passing the hat amongst each other. Thing that I largely disliked about this episode was that bloody stupid voice they gave the Gunslinger. Just like the equally p*sspoor 'Adam' off of Buffy Season 4. So boo to that.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 8:07 am

They shamelessly stole the undertaker gag from Back to the Future 3.

And was it me or did the alarm on the egg sound like the alarm in the War Chief's base back in The War Games?

Another light throwaway episode that was a nice enough way to pass the time. The whole Rory and Amy going back and forth thing is getting silly now though, especially as they're still in every episode so them returning home every week has no effect on anything.

My mother's main comment was Ben Browder wasn't in it enough and was wearing too many clothes.

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 8:59 pm

i think writing Who has really 'clicked' now for Chris Chibnall. whilst not as good as 'Dinosaurs On A Spaceship', the slightly striaghter 'Power Of Three' was also very good. I did feel that the climax to the latest alien threat didn't get the payoff it quite deserved, but I was buoyed along by the more interesting work done around the Doctor's relationship with the Ponds. Plus, Brian was back! Hooray!

I really don't want the Ponds to leave though

I know they aren't real, but I love them and will miss them terribly.

Ackula · Post by **Ackula** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 11:10 pm

The thing that bugged me the most was that in 'A Town Called Mercy' everyone was so very concerned with the Doctor allowing a war criminal to die, and were so full of morals all of a sudden.

Yet in the previous episode with the dinosaurs, no one thought twice about the fact that the Doctor sent the janitor from Hogwarts to his certain death, it wasn't even mentioned or dwelt on by Amy or Rory. All he was going to do was steal some dinosaurs or rape a queen, certainly not as severe as a war criminal.

I like the first episode rather well and the twist ending got me, I didn't see it coming until a few seconds before it happened. It is a bit confusing to me that Skaro exists once again, and it never bothered to really explain how that happened, or how the Dalek army rebuilt itself from only a few colored Daleks (unless I missed something).

The other thing that is bugging me is that I see nothing linking all the episodes together yet. No foreshadowing of a major story arc that runs through all the episodes, no "Bad Wolf" or "The Silence Will Fall", etc. Maybe there is and I'm just not catching on to it yet, but I haven't really seen a connection of plots yet, but it may be too early in the season to expect it?

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Sun Sep 23, 2012 12:07 am

Well the trader fella did chuck all the silurians in stasis out of the airlock of their craft purely because they were of no value. the scientist was a war criminal by virtue of creating cyborg killing machines and dealing in the sort of dispassionate dismissal of life war commands. In their own ways,they were as bad as each other. I would agree that there was no reaction from the support cast over the doctor's final act against soloman,i imagine that was to do with the more pressing crisis of evading earth's missiles - and that the doctor didn't disclose to the others exactly what his plan was (i think).

The skaro question is a pertinent one,but then it depends on how you determine 'destroyed'. Its certainly ruined. The planet was definately burned in remembrance of the daleks,but i don't think its been outright stated that the planet no longer exists. I'm sure inflatable dalek will know the answer to that one.

As you also say,the lack of 2010 daleks was puzzling in asylum,but according to doctor who magazine the explanation for this is that like any other race,the newer daleks have yet to grow in numbers over the regular population - no mass upgrade has occurred.

And finally,yes there is no over reaching arc for this series of who.no doubt that is in part to the series being broken in two and over a much longer gap than last year.

Post by **Denyer** » Sun Sep 23, 2012 12:40 pm

The Daleks are fairly time active, which gives them a get-out-of-jail-and-keep-on-merchandising card. On which point, hopefully the rainbow ones will continue to be quietly sidelined.

This week felt better paced, although the reset button aspect of the plot was annoying. I'd rather not have much of an overall arc (ditto to not stuffing too much into each episode)...

Trader fella was completely unlikeable, is probably the main difference.

I do hope we get more of Kate; the yoof crowd can have JLC and the rest of us a less glib semi-companion. Particularly if it means more Brigadier-by-tale-and-reputation.

borg72 · Post by **borg72** » Mon Sep 24, 2012 3:07 am

i think my biggest gripe with The Power Of Three is why couldn't the whole first half - the invasion of the cubes - have been told as the 'seasons story arc' during the first three episodes, with Asylum, Dinosaurs, and Mercy being told as the adventures than happened *during* the events of Three. it could have really built up the tension and made the payoff with the whoever-they-were aliens that much more worthwhile. as it was, this alien race, mythical enemy of the time lords, is reduced to a monster-of-the-week the audience really doesn't get much of a chance to be bothered about. which is a shame, as the basic idea of another time-travelling race shadowing the time lords is actually quite interesting, but as it stands we may never see them again.

nice to see some in-abstentia brigadier action though. And i think i may be the only person i know who's actually ready to be rid of the ponds. i also totally didn't rate matt smiths performance in this one. his 'heart attack' came off more as 'act like you've just had an espresso', and i can't help but feel either tennant or ecclestone could have pulled off the 'serious doctor' moments with way more gravitas and credulity.

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Mon Sep 24, 2012 8:27 am

I think Tennant may have given a similar giddy performance, in honesty. Eccles prbably would have done that striaghter, but then he struggled with bringing the humorous material properly to life, just coming across as camp - much like he did in an episode of the League Of Gentlemen playing the owner of a cat cinema.

Having a 'season arc' is a very American thing, and, historically, it's not really something Who has tended to do. There's been more of a leaning towards that to help overseas sales in recent years. I don't mind it, but Who is an anthology show and it's very hard to pull that off in a show that bounces around through time and space (which is why I found last years arc slightly unsatisfactory, as it sort of fell apart after River Songs origin was revealed). As all that 'bad wolf' nonsense will attest. Unless its kept fairly innocuous, then it doesn't really work. The 'Mister Saxon' stuff leading up to the reveal of the Master worked well, as did the cracks in time, but The Silence and Bad Wolf were terrible. The other things these do is they tend to puff the Doctor up into some miracle mister Jesus running through the universe, and whilst I initially liked the idea of the Doctor falling into myth and legend, it did feel like it was becoming an albatross around the character's neck.

Rack 'n Ruin · Post by **Rack 'n Ruin** » Mon Sep 24, 2012 10:00 am

Not the best of episodes, imo. The cubes zapping people dead and then alive again was rubbish, as was most of the acting. And who or what were those orderlies? Did I miss the explanation?

Let's hope for better next week.

borg72 · Post by **borg72** » Sun Sep 30, 2012 3:29 am

well *that* was better, at least in terms of acting.
Smith (for me at least) really faulters when he's trying to be angry and grown up, so seeing him being impetuous, childish, and temper-tantrum-y, really seems to suit him.
Kingston, for the first time in a while, really didn't annoy me.
Gillan was good too, and for the first time (ok, maybe it was the glasses) I actually believed she was older.
Arthur I've always thought was a talented actor, he just rarely got a chance to shine being third-fiddle, so it was good to at least see him go out on a high. if anything the rooftop scene got me lot more than the graveyard one.

the plot though... ugh. so many holes. I don't even want to start listing them, becausei know I'll find more. I know that moffat likes to constantly change how the returning-bad-guys-of-the-week 'work' (not just the angels, pretty much every returning baddie has had some 'new' 'thing' everytime they've returned), but in this he strayed from 'doing a new thing' to 'directly contradict what we've already established'.

don't even get me started on the timey-wimey. relying on technobabble to prop up the center of your plot is never going to go well outside of star trek, and the resulting plot holes really rankled. when you tell me doctor who CAN'T do something, you need to make sure you've explained why solidly enough. 'because timey-wimey' really doesn't cut it for me, but maybe i'm expecting too much from a saturday tea-time show?

looking forward to crimbo though. not so much for the story, but seeing how coleman stands up. I'm also looking forward to seeing how the twist in Asylum pans out, but something tells me moffat may not even touch that in the introduction episode. which will make an interesting twist if the doctor actually knows more than we do about it for a bit.

Rack 'n Ruin · Post by **Rack 'n Ruin** » Sun Sep 30, 2012 7:40 am

Well, that was a very shoddy way to send off the

SPOILER! (select to read)
Ponds

, I thought. (Are spoiler tags needed here or not?)

So the Angels number one talent is to turn to stone when in view and become a statue? Has Moffat never heard how the Statue of Liberty is constructed?

And the whole book conceit was rubbish. Least said the better.

I was wanted better for

SPOILER! (select to read)
Amy & Rory's last episode. I'll miss Rory especially. Well done Arthur Darvill!

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Sun Sep 30, 2012 7:53 am

...the Angels being quantum locked was explained in Blink..that's why they're stone when you see them...

Like Borg72, I found the slight reset to the m.o we'd seen in Blink a bit jarring, but the business in Flesh & Stone was set in the far future where the Angels had been dormant for a long time, so perhaps the killing stuff they did there was simply because they needed to get to the source of the time energy they could sense. Here, they were at the height of their powers and just happy zapping folk back in time. The Statue Of Liberty was deeply silly, and yes, made of metal, not stone..but then so was the cherub on the fountain that zapped SPOILER in the first place. I did like to wee cherubs!

The rooftop bit got me as well, and the graveyard bit I would have liked more horror movie cliche...typical that it all happens to SPOILER though!

River was good in this episode, now that she's freed of all the expectation of working out who she really is.

I think i did expect more of this episode than I actually got as I really like Amy and Rory. I did like the bittersweet ending though, just the episode itself just didn't quite work as well as it should.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sun Sep 30, 2012 6:23 pm

SPOILER STUFF

The actreess who plays the new companion was in the Dalek episode, whether she's the same character or not remains to be seen...

The Power of 3:

Nice light little episode, completely throwaway but harmless. The Lethbridge Stewart revelation actually welled me up more than this weeks one did.

Angels Take Manhatten:

Yay for the shameless Ghostbusters 2 bit, even if it made no sense (surely there must be someone always looking at? How does no one notice the giant footprints?).

In fact the episode was full of things that don't stand up to much thought, like how the Angel's manage to run a hotel (or can the people they send back actually leave and go get their own food? A bit of a half arsed prison then).

That final Angel was a huge cheat when it came to the rules as well, it suddenly only needed the person it was going to attack to not be looking at it rather than everyone present. But then oddly didn't attack the Doctor when he had his little cry.

Lots of nice stuff, but the logic flaws let it down a bit, and once again the sad stuff was over done (especially the slow mo and OTT THIS IS SAD music on the roof fall).

And err, what's to stop the Doctor going back to 30's LA, getting a train to New York and going to pick the Williams up?

Rack 'n Ruin · Post by **Rack 'n Ruin** » Sun Sep 30, 2012 6:41 pm

Yep, way, way too many plot holes to make the episode enjoyable, imo. This run has been a little disappointing overall, and this episode was by far the worst so far.

I'm desperately hoping the new companion improves things. I have my doubts. Feeling rather pessimistic about Who now.

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Sun Sep 30, 2012 9:17 pm

@ dalek i think the Doctor probably could go back to the '30s...but would he end up making a mess of time? They'd just popped back to 2012 because the future was changed, so would going back just bugger all that up? Likewise, it makes no sense why he couldn't drop in on the Ponds later on during their new life in...wherever, as although they are seemingly buried in New York there is the possiblity of them being displaced in place as well as time. And then there was the book that Amy has to write so that the Doctor can go back to 1938 in the first place...

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Mon Oct 01, 2012 9:39 am

I've just rewatched this (much better without the constant chatter all the way through from my girlfriend - i swear, i talk through her tv shows and i get all told off, but its perfectly fine if she does the same to me!) and its not as messy as i thought. The Doctor states the zapping back in time is the angels "third form of attack" and that they seem to be establishing a farm in the hotel. The implication that being that the folk zapped back in time are kept within the radius of the hotel and lured there by the cherubs whom as young 'uns have the ability to displace people in space, not in time (perhaps this power develops later). The angels do this continuously, endlessly zapping them back inside their own lifespan to feed off the temporal energy. I think the issue with this particular episode, and the angels in general is that they do not speak, so there's constant exposition from those interacting with them to explain their actions. I wonder how an episode without the exposition would work? it would be nice to leave their motivations ambiguous...Still the best of the modern Who monsters, and aside from the statue of liberty thing (not improved on rewatch and a very silly set piece), a quite suspenseful and oddly low key episode.

I'm glad I rewatched this

Oh, and I think the reason the Doctor can't - or shouldn't- go back for the Ponds is because although the book is fiction, it is presenting events that are historical fact (at least at the end, once the paradox brings them all back to 2012), and the last time the Doctor changed an event that was historical fact, he went a bit above himself...

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Tue Dec 25, 2012 10:12 pm

Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen.

Probably the best Christmas episode since The Next Doctor, silly frothy nonsense but nice silly frothy nonsense. A potentially interesting mystery set up with the still technically as yet unmet new companion as well (I'm assuming the internet is already assuming she's the Rani, they do it enough and sooner or later they'll be right).

Though frankly the Sontaran should join the crew full time. He may only have one joke, but it made me laugh with every variation. He's like the Bay version of Ironhide.

Plus... One of the main parts of the Beeb's Christmas day schedule was the secret origin of a Doctor Who villain that last appeared over forty years ago. Without the Yeti servants that people actually remember. THAT IS AWESOME.

Though by waving that lunch box with the underground map on it about that does mean the Doctor is responsible for the deaths of everyone in The Web of Fear. Whoops.

It'll be interesting to see what the fan rage is on some of this stuff actually as...:

The Great Intelligence is the bastard love child of Evil Space Snow and Richard E. Grant's corpse. Contradicting a whole heap of books and audios (and possibly comics ) where; along with any other monster that was a bit nebulous; it was a sub-Lovecraftian elder god from before the dawn of time.

The events of The Web of Fear are firmly pinned as being set in 1967 (as the only reason for the Doctor to be so specific about the year the tube map came from was to put that date in its mind). So suddenly, and belatedly, Mawdryn Undead (the only other TV story to give firm years for the Brig's adventures) is backed up and any spin off that went with the "Near future" stuff with UNIT is now also ignored.

Hell, even Sherlock Holmes being fictional and inspired by a lesbian lizard woman and her wife wipes out one of the New Adventures.

Post by **Denyer** » Tue Dec 25, 2012 11:18 pm

Yeah, but how many times other than the Pandorica incident has the timeline been reset?

Can't see any issue with "it all happened" being the case.

We seem to be getting to the point where Xmas specials aren't shit, which is welcome.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Tue Dec 25, 2012 11:51 pm

Oh, I don't have that much of a problem with it (I love a lot of the fifth Doctor, Peri and Erimen stories but when I watch Androzarni it occurs right after Planet of Fire for me because Peri being new is a rather large part of the point), it's just Who in general has always had a far larger number of fans who try and fit all the spin offs into one coherent time line than just about any other franchise* I suspect many of them will be weeping blood to come up with ways that don't involve "A time war did it".

And to be fair, some of their efforts with Human Nature happening twice were, if nothing else, pretty inventive.

*The only other one I can think of with a really substantial amount of spin off material where there's real effort to make it part of the main narrative by a sizeable amount of fandom is probably Star Wars, and that's understandable with only six films in the "Primary" (if that's the right word) canon.

Trek fans on the other hand seem fairly relaxed about the whole thing, many of them enjoy the books and comics and even think a lot of them are superior to the cannon stuff, but equally don't loose any sleep over the latest Braga written IDW comic ignoring what the books did with the Borg because "Only what's on screen is real".

Most other franchises have bloody awful tie in material so nobody cares regardless. We won't be getting feverish debate trying to make Apollo 11's depiction in Ghosts of Yesterday match up to Dark of the Moon any time soon.

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Wed Dec 26, 2012 9:16 am

All the Web Of Fear stuff passed me by, if I'm honest. Don't know the serial the Great Intelligence comes from, but by the same toekn nor did this make me worry overmuch that I'd missed something, so hooray for that.

This was certainly Smith's best Xmas special. I was a bit deflated by last years effort, which seemed to me to be trying too hard. The Snowmen were adorable little monsters and the period detail was amazing. I think this is one of the best looking Who Episodes ever. But then Doctor Who really suits the Victorian era. Glorious stuff. Jenna-Louise Coleman is suitably perky, and I've liked all the interviews I've seen with her, where she's clearly very enthusisatic about it all and almost can't seem to believe she's landed the part. By contrast, Smith seems to mirror his character somewhat and seems to miss Karen as much as the Doctor misses Amy, but I'm possibly reading too much into things (but I did pick up on this during the CiN stuff this year).

Nice to see the return of three of Moffat's best supporting characters too, Madame Vastra and Jenny clearly need their own Big Finish spin off show and Drax is great fun.

I did liked the whole being parked on a cloud with a very long staircase business, that was a really nice visual too. As for the new Tardis interior, well it's a lot more sober than the last one and somehow less impressive because of that. Suitably retro though, perhaps pointedly so.

Overall, a lovely romp and I hope Oswin isn't The Rani (boooorrrrring!)