Dr. Who

[Sir T]

In "doomsday" Tennent wore 3d glasses that could see "dark energy"

[Evildrider]

In "doomsday" Tennent wore 3d glasses that could see "dark energy"

I could have swore he used it in a few other episodes too.

[Malakili]

It has nothing to do with believable.  I totally buy that the Doctor could make sunglasses that could do what his screwdriver does.  It's stupid because it's fucking sunglasses that look like they came from a 1990s dollar store that were clearly written in because "wearables" are all the rage now, or some bullshit.

Anyway, I disliked how much they shoved in your face that there was a paradox.  The whole show is rife with time travel problems that have traditionally been sometimes literally hand waved away, and now they want to make the big reveal for this episode A PARADOX!  Woo freaking hoo.

The episode itself was not bad, and I do like the random Doctor investigates a thing episodes a lot more than than the serious business it's time for character development to happen episodes.

[Sir T]

Just be thankful they are not a fancy version of google glass, I guess

[Ironwood]

In "doomsday" Tennent wore 3d glasses that could see "dark energy"

Yes, and that was actually clever, well written and made sense to the episode.

Also, pretty much a fucking one-off.

[Ironwood]

Beethoven Bookends to the episode were retarded and unneccesary and the Deaf Girl becoming Daredevil was fucking stupid.

Sonic Sunglasses still need to be binned.  Truly stupid.

Yes, because a Sonic Screwdriver that can do everything from analyze chrono-molecular composition to delivering stun bolts, *except* drive screws, is totally more believable.

--Dave

Not really.  I've complained about the over-use of 'The Wand' before.  It's just a by-product of 'Dr Who As Fairy Tale' direction that it has been dragged down.  Especially since it did EVERYTHING with just a brief wee wave.  No User Input/output required.  It's toss too.

You really ought to pick who you're gonna argue with.  Because you're just agreeing with me.   

[HaemishM]

Beethoven Bookends to the episode were retarded and unneccesary and the Deaf Girl becoming Daredevil was fucking stupid.

Sonic Sunglasses still need to be binned.  Truly stupid.

Yes, because a Sonic Screwdriver that can do everything from analyze chrono-molecular composition to delivering stun bolts, *except* drive screws, is totally more believable.

--Dave

Nothing to do with believability - the sunglasses just look stupid as fuck.

[Sir T]

I think thats the big thing. The glasses look terrible. He would be better off pulling out ordinary "brainy specs" and then saying thiose were his sonic glasses when someone bugs him about it. That's more in character for the Doc.

And there is no real reason why the Doc can't be pulling out different devices out of his "bigger on the inside" pockets anyway. They just stuck on the screwdriver all the time because they were lazy.

[Khaldun]

I don't mind the idea that he's got the Time Lord equivalent of a Swiss army knife, and I perfectly buy that the interface is telepathic (hence it being hard for anyone else to use it). I've always thought of the sonic as being some kind of 4th dimensional conduit to the TARDIS, pulling capacity from it via some form of extradimensional wifi. (Though I hated the times in the Smith years that he used it like a ray gun, that's very out of character.)

The glasses are bad not because they do all the stuff the sonic does but because they're dumb looking.

[Ironwood]

The Sonic Screwdriver used to be just that.  A wee handy gizmo that helped do some stuff.  Unlock stuff.  Unscrew stuff (it actually did this in a couple of episodes, honest).  Tinker with electronics and stuff.

But in this reboot it's the universal fucking magic gadget.  It is, in fact, a wizards wand.  For little to no reason except PLOT ZOMG.

I personally think 'all the stuff the sonic does' is now a laundry list of utter shite, entirely designed to get out of plot holes.  Of which there are several thousand.

Hell, just look at the Wiki Entry.  You can see where it got all retarded.  This quote is hilarious in hindsight :

During the Third Doctor's tenure, producer Barry Letts was adamant that the device not become a cure-all for the series, and limited its use to avoid writers becoming over-reliant on it.

Sigh.

[NowhereMan]

I'm really not a big fan of the 'Hey look, this whole thing was one of those famous time paradox stories. Time travel stories sure have issues don't they?' style of story telling. Who is not at its narrative strongest when they're using time travel as a plot device rather than a means to get people to fun locations. I kind of wish they'd go back to the early Doctor style and make it so unreliable that it's best just to accept wherever it spits you out.

Also that particular paradox would have been more fun if they'd had the solution be a McGuffin the Doctor grabbed off the bad guy's ship and used to defeat him and then found in the ship and took it back with him to use to defeat him and...

[palmer_eldritch]

I'm pretty sure I remember a time when the sonic screwdriver didn't do anything much except unlock things. Which worked OK - he had one magic power his enemies didn't know about, which was the ability to unlock doors (lucky nobody ever searched him before locking him in a room!).

For some reason I watched the first episode of the underwater one again and it had a great spooky atmosphere.

[Khaldun]

I like the idea of the sonic as a thing that lets him hack most electronics. That's fine with me, because done properly it gives him a very significant "power" but not a magic plot device.

There was an old pen-and-paper RPG called Timemaster (same people that did Chill) that had a supplement about how to handle an RPG with time-travelling agents fighting a time-travelling enemy. It was hugely clever if kind of bear to figure out how to handle as a GM. You could do stuff like carry a "causality-violating message tube" with you that would let you send a message back to yourselves about what not to do, but you could only carry one or two, and there would be things they couldn't undo. Other good stuff like that about how to handle paradoxes, etc.

I don't mind the Doctor talking about some of the obvious timey-wimey issues in more detail with companions--in fact, it can be a real strength of the show. But it requires them setting some consistent 'writers' bible' sorts of constraints down, same as the sonic, so that it's clever rather than just "wrote myself into a corner, now here's how I get out".

[Surlyboi]

Ok, that episode was meh up until the end and then my head exploded. Moffat, you bastard. Don't fuck this up in part two. Though the fact that there's a part two at all probably means you will because you can't leave well enough alone.

[Khaldun]

I thought that was terrible.

The electric eel thing alone was just fucking stupid. It's like a plotline that depends on polar bears in Equatorial Africa. But it was just generally incoherent.

[HaemishM]

Not just incoherent but utter pretentious wankery. And I swear, if he says "I'M THE DOCTOR AND I SAVE PEOPLE!" again, I will have a stroke. Or burn some toast, I won't be able to tell the difference anyway. This whole crisis of confidence thing he's going through is just fucking awful. I did get a bit of a giggle from the Viking snapping the sonic sunglasses but it didn't last as they just continued to fucking use them.

EDIT:

[Khaldun]

Unusually, everybody else seems to have really loved this episode. I did like some of Capaldi's speeches and characterization--the connection to Fires of Pompeii didn't thrill me but generally I don't mind the idea that this version of the Doctor is a bit more emotionally raw or unguarded than he often is (which doesn't mean being constantly apologizing, re: Tennant). The obsession with saving people is also fine. I just thought the ersatz Seven Samurai/leftover Stargate SG-1 plot was really meh, and that was before the electric eels showed up.

The immortality chip seems dopey too in this respect: if it's that easy to make a human being immortal, I would assume that in the human future lots of people are, but instead, the closest we've seen to that is the lady who becomes a stretched out frame of skin. I wouldn't mind if it had been something more to the effect of, "she's not immortal but she is going to live for a long time, and have the same basic heartaches that long-lived people do".

[Ironwood]

It was utter bullshit, but Elena loved it and the line about Web-designers made me laugh more than it should have.

I also giggled when they snapped the glasses, but groaned when they still worked.

Also, Discount Odin.

[satael]

I spent the first half of the episode thinking they are in some kind of VR or another planet since the vikings had horned helmets. 

[slog]

Not just incoherent but utter pretentious wankery. And I swear, if he says "I'M THE DOCTOR AND I SAVE PEOPLE!" again, I will have a stroke. Or burn some toast, I won't be able to tell the difference anyway. This whole crisis of confidence thing he's going through is just fucking awful. I did get a bit of a giggle from the Viking snapping the sonic sunglasses but it didn't last as they just continued to fucking use them.

EDIT:

[Khaldun]

Except for the guest-starring appearance by the Thundercats, that was decent.

[HaemishM]

No that was pretty shitty. Let's spend most of an episode whinging about caring/not caring and going over the whole concept of the Doctor with a fine-toothed comb. The entirety of the final set piece was terrible and awkward. Why didn't Lion-O just reach out and claw the Doctor's head off, or kill Sam Smith? Or I don't know, use his fire breath for something other than a burp? I actually would have been behind the idea of Maisie Williams joining as a companion for a little while.

[Ironwood]

I was quite underwhelmed, beyond the whole 'Capaldi and Maisie can Act' part of it.  Oh, and the Tereleptils line was uttered JUST as I was saying it, to the amusement of my family.

However, this is not the first time they've broken out Lion people, so I'm not that bothered by it.  Except for the breathing fire thing, which I think needed Don Cheadle to deal with.

I dunno.  We know Maisie ain't gonna be much beyond this, since she has, you know, another full time job.  So she's probably not going to be a companion or as present and annoying as Jack (oh and soooo many Jack parallels.  Moffat really, really, really likes to try and one up RTD at every turn, eh ?)

I think I'd like to see more from this writer, but perhaps she should be allowed to write for Clara.  So that she can be something other than a carboard cutout of a woman.

[NowhereMan]

I'm going to say I actually didn't hate Capt. Jack as a concept just because the I liked what the actor did with the character. I largely disliked what the writer did with it though.

What the fuck with Lion-o? I saw no reason a long lived cynical female would fall hook, line and sinker for a lion faced, fire breather. Why could he breathe fire? What possible sense did that character make? I wasn't a huge fan of the previous episode but the follow up managed to be utter cack for the last 15-20 minutes.

[Morat20]

The immortality chip seems dopey too in this respect: if it's that easy to make a human being immortal, I would assume that in the human future lots of people are, but instead, the closest we've seen to that is the lady who becomes a stretched out frame of skin. I wouldn't mind if it had been something more to the effect of, "she's not immortal but she is going to live for a long time, and have the same basic heartaches that long-lived people do".

I vaguely recall a line in there about her being able to be killed. Something the Doctor said in part 2, but I'm not going to go bother digging it up. (Maybe when she was talking about being an archer in a war?)

It seemed more like a "Stops aging, repairs you really fast, can't get sick" sort of thing. Killing her just takes a lot more work to ensure she stays dead.

Whereas Jack is a fact. From the way they've described him, reality would probably twist to ensure he could come back -- no matter what you did.

[Khaldun]

Yeah, she says, "I can get killed". So she's not Captain Jack.

FYI, Maisie Williams makes another apparently substantial appearance later this season. So who knows what that means.

[Ironwood]

I think we know what it means.  They're already building this arc up to 'People Wot Are Left Behind'.  The Clara out episode will be her and Maisie, abandoned somewhere.

And it'll be hugely retarded wank.

[Khaldun]

And the Zygon one was also...pretty good, actually. It's a dangling plot thread that was worth picking up. Reminds me of the Martians in Justice League--similar dilemma. The Zygon politics even make sense (that there would be a small number of militant Zygons uninterested in perpetually remaining in another form as the price of peace). Good way to bring back Osgood as well.

[Ironwood]

I fucking hated it.  It may as well have been called 'Dr Who and the Totally Timely Illegal Immigrant Plotline.'   It was as horrendously political as it was manipulative and offensive.

Also, plot twists you could see from space and just... Just Fuck It.  Horrible.  Everything about it was fucking horrible.

[Khaldun]

I wasn't particularly fooled by Clara--inevitable when you have shape-changers. But I thought it moved along well otherwise, and I didn't mind the timely politics etc. even though the show doesn't do that much. (RTD was sort of obsessed with the badness of plutocrats and the awesomeness of bisexuals but that was about as far as that went.)

[Tebonas]

They really lay it on a bit thick, they could have called the Aliens Syrigons and it wouldn't have been much more on the nose.

[NowhereMan]

Yeah the politics of this is just so horribly, horribly on the nose. I mean it makes sense as a plot point, it's just adding in things like drone strikes and the Doctor stating they shouldn't risk innocent people was a little too much 'let me draw a simple and obvious diagram for the thick ones at the back'. Pacing was good though and the overall idea is great (I think). Some semi-plot related issues:

[Khaldun]

I think this is one really tedious thing about *all* shapechanger stories--at some point you'd have a protocol and drill people in it extensively. Never trust someone who hasn't been partnered and in sight, don't fall for obvious attempts to duplicate relatives or friends, put tests at all secure entry points, insist on tests/verification before entering a meeting, etc. Anyway, shapechanger aliens, if handled correctly, should be fundamentally unbeatable unless there is some easy vulnerability or trick that exposes them.

[NowhereMan]

The mental link thing worked fairly well as a Zygon weakness (they needed to keep the original alive and imprisoned in order to maintain their impersonation) but with the current setup it comes pretty close to making them totally unbeatable since anyone who has been out your sight could be a shapeshifter and they now have access to enough material to impersonate that person flawlessly.

[HaemishM]

I fucking hated it.  It may as well have been called 'Dr Who and the Totally Timely Illegal Immigrant Plotline.'   It was as horrendously political as it was manipulative and offensive.

Also, plot twists you could see from space and just... Just Fuck It.  Horrible.  Everything about it was fucking horrible.

This. It was fucking terrible.