Dr. Who

[Mattemeo]

PS - Has anyone read Black Company ?

I'd never even heard of it till I started checking out the Book thread. And no, I haven't read any yet. Worth it?

[palmer_eldritch]

I also don’t want to get into an argument, partly because I can’t work out how serious people are being.

But to give an example of the way the story didn’t really work:


But in a spirit of conciliation, yes it was clever the way that some events earlier in the season turned out to have a greater significance than was clear at the time, and in a way that did make sense.

[Ironwood]

 I'm an adult who grew up watching what I could of Doctor Who as it all but ended early on in my childhood and I therefore had to piece things together from occassional BBC2 saturday morning repeats and videotapes.

I really have no interest in arguing with you.  Enjoy the rest of this crap.  There will be a lot more servings to come, I'm sure.

[Mattemeo]

I'm not interested in arguing. I'm a little bemused at the weekly seething at a saturday afternoon family show, but hey, sometimes we can't help the things we're inexplicably hurt by. What's your point?

[Samwise]

tl;dr

Psycho.

[Mattemeo]

wurds r hard 

[ahoythematey]

I liked the season, overall, and I really liked the doctor.  My only main beefs were with the
Also, the silurians episodes bother me since series three tells us there were

[Tebonas]

I really like the Doctor, and if I don't think about it I like the finale as well.

But I'm not braindead so its hard to ignore the logical faults in this. I'm no expert, but haven't they said more than once that the Doctor can't mess with his own timeline, that his own timeline is linear? Also "If you think about the Doctor the Doctor will return" is awfully close to "Everybody say Doctor and he will stop being a shriveled up old gnome)".

Which is sad, because the way they arrived at the conclusion was nicely crafted. "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" gave me goosebumps despite my eyes rolling around in my head. I think that might be Moffats problem. He seems to craft the cool scenes and then tries to somehow press them into the story. And if something has to give it tends to be the continuity of the show.

[adjunct]

Lawrence Miles Wikipedia page is gold.

He is a bitter, bitter old man.

[Fraeg]

His paragraph about Venom was right on the money though.

 

PS - Has anyone read Black Company ?

yes I have read several, what I read was enjoyable, but stephen erickson does it much better.

with that said.  If you can describe a conclusion to a TV series as Flacid... then that was a flacid conclusion. 

[Reg]

I've only been watching Doctor Who since the 2005 reboot so I have no childhood memories being inexplicably violated. Still, this was the worst season I've seen. It was tolerable but I don't actually much like any of the characters including Amy Pond and the new Doctor.

I'm not offended by candy coloured Daleks or Spitfires from outer space either. I just don't like anyone. Luckily, Doctors and Companions come and go. It'll come around again I'm sure.

[palmer_eldritch]

Lawrence Miles Wikipedia page is gold.

He is a bitter, bitter old man.

What I like best about that is the edit summary you someone used when they inserted that line. "cleaned up intro para."

[Samwise]

Just watched.  Apart from the Bill and Ted bits I didn't think it was bad.  Shame the Bill and Ted bits were half the episode.

[Bunk]

I fall on the side of having enjoyed it. I thought it maintained a strong level of excitment through the whole episode, not so much in being excited about how it would end (duh, everything gets fixed), but it kept me excited and interested in finding out how we would get there.

Sure, the story crumbles under close scrutiny, but it gave me what I wanted which was an intense episode with several "cool" moments. And no retarded spitfires in space (my vote for worst episode of the entire reboot).

So...

[raydeen]

Just saw the Vincent episode. I liked it a lot. Actually got me to shed a few tears when the Doctor showed Vincent just how much of an impression he'd made on the art world. Touching little tale.

[Ironwood]

Tinkerbell will come back to life if you just close your eyes and believe hard enough.

 

[Bunk]

Tinkerbell died!!! 

[Ironwood]

Lies.  She married Terence, settled down and lived happily ever after.

[NowhereMan]

This series has been great when they haven't been trying to show amazing the Doctor is and screaming about how awesome and powerful he is, the whole 'show don't tell' rule. It requires some suspension of disbelief that the Doctor isn't regarded with fear/loathing/awe by pretty much every advanced species in the universe considering the crap he does but frankly I prefer that to him just shouting he's the Doctor and everyone needs to get out of the way. Perhaps contradictorily I'm ok with foreshadowing of him being like that but I'm not interested in seeing stories about a character who when confronted with dozens of enemy fleets can click his fingers and see them run. We know the Doctor's awesome but we want to see him do awesome, clever things not tell people he can and then have him rip off Bill and Ted.

That said the episodes have by and large had great moments and I really like the actors and when they have had the Doctor doing his thing and kept it 'low key' like the Van Gogh episode I've really, really liked it. I just want it to be more like the bits I like and less like the writers have a few great scenes in mind and think the rest of the episode doesn't matter as long as there are famous Doctor baddies or giant spaceships everywhere and he points the sonic screw driver at stuff a lot.

[Signe]

I still think it's all just ok.  The acting is ok, the doctor is ok, the companion is ok.  The writing has not been very compelling.  I do like the fact that they're continuing to develop a more emotional side to the doctor.  They did it with Tennant and I like that they're continuing to do it with this doctor.  I thought the Van Gogh was pretty good, but not wonderful.  Better than most of this season.  I haven't seen wonderful yet.  I actually almost gave up and stopped watching back towards the beginning after the fourth or fifth time the doctor reminded us who he was.  At least he hasn't been doing that lately.  If I hadn't put the series on record, I probably wouldn't care too much if I forgot to watch.  It's better than it was at the start so maybe it'll continue in that direction.  Hopefully.

[HaemishM]

(Impressionism starts and stops with Monet as far as I'm concerned).

It's ok to be wrong, you know. The first step is admitting it.

[Simond]

This series has been great when they haven't been trying to show amazing the Doctor is and screaming about how awesome and powerful he is, the whole 'show don't tell' rule. It requires some suspension of disbelief that the Doctor isn't regarded with fear/loathing/awe by pretty much every advanced species in the universe considering the crap he does but frankly I prefer that to him just shouting he's the Doctor and everyone needs to get out of the way.

To be fair, he did this three times in this series and it worked once, was used for a joke the second and an empty bluff on the Doctor's part the third ("That'll buy us half an hour" or whatever it was) that turned out to be irrelevant anyway because the whole thing was a trap so the Giant Enemy Crab Fleet just played along while they waited for the Pandorica to open because they wanted the Doctor to stay down there.

[Mattemeo]

(Impressionism starts and stops with Monet as far as I'm concerned).

It's ok to be wrong, you know. The first step is admitting it.

You're probably right. I just have something of an art history and appreciation blind-spot for the majority of impressionism. I'm more moved by cubism (and it was a while before I really began to understand that) but pre-raphaelite and art-deco is where the majority of my love and influences have stemmed from.

[Fraeg]

Just saw the Vincent episode. I liked it a lot. Actually got me to shed a few tears when the Doctor showed Vincent just how much of an impression he'd made on the art world. Touching little tale.

That was an amazing episode, easily in my top ten, possibly top 5 of the nu-who episodes.

hmm off the cuff list (I am considereing two parter as one)

1 - Blink
2 - Dalek
3 - Empty Child/Doctor Dances... are you my mommy?
4 - Vincent and the Doctor
5 - Silence in the library/Forest of the dead
6 - Rise of the Cybermen/Age of steel
7 - Midnight
8 - The Girl in the Fireplace
9 - The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit
10 - The water of mars

[Triforcer]

I agree with all of those except nine.  We have similar Dr. Who tastes.

[raydeen]

Let's not forget Family of Blood. That's gotta be in the list as well.

[HaemishM]

Watched the first episode of the Season 2 finale. Parts of it were good, parts of it made no fucking sense whatsoever.

#1 if you are one ship in a fleet of ships made up of the most dangerous machines in the universe (Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, whatever) and you're concern is the Doctor, and the Doctor is standing DIRECTLY BELOW YOUR FLEET, why the fuck don't you just nuke him from orbit? Are you that shit-scared? Also, why bother with the whole elaborate plot only to imprison him? WHY DON'T YOU JUST FUCKING KILL HIM NOW THAT YOU HAVE HIM CAPTURED?

Does not make fucking sense.

Other than that, not bad. Really do like Matt Smith's portryal, and sad to find out he'll be gone after the end of the next series. Can he take Moffat with him?

[Raguel]

Other than that, not bad. Really do like Matt Smith's portryal, and sad to find out he'll be gone after the end of the next series. Can he take Moffat with him?

wow that stinks. Where did you get this info from?

[Engels]

was on slashdot. to be honest, I don't like Matt Smith. We can do better, much better. Maybe not so much upper class twit next time, plzkthnx.

[Samwise]

[HaemishM]

I actually think Smith is a really good actor. There's a lot he's brought to the character that other actors might struggle over. He's just been saddled with really bad, sloppy scripts and stories that don't make fucking sense. It sometimes makes me long for the Davies days. 

[palmer_eldritch]

I really like Matt Smith Doctor and the way he portrays the Doctor as a brilliant young (at heart) academic more than an action hero. I hope Slashdot is wrong!

[Triforcer]

I'll settle for just getting rid of River Song.  There is something about that smirk on her face that just makes me want to watch Karen Gillan punch her in the throat. 

[Ironwood]

I actually think Smith is a really good actor. There's a lot he's brought to the character that other actors might struggle over. He's just been saddled with really bad, sloppy scripts and stories that don't make fucking sense. It sometimes makes me long for the Davies days. 

It bears repeating.

[Simond]

No it doesn't. Anyone who is missing RTD are going to get exactly what they deserve want with the US Torchwood series.
Have fun!