Dr. Who

[Ironwood]

Hey, where have you Been

[rattran]

That was... awful. Mr Moffat really needs to die in a fire. Slowly.

[Tebonas]

What the fuck is wrong with Moffat? He certainly knows how to write, his other stuff is not bad. I gave him quite some leeway because of that. But when it comes to Doctor Who his writing reaches lower and lower depths. Did a Doctor Who impersonator touch him in a bad place as a child and now he wants to destroy everything Who as a late retaliation?

[Khaldun]

I'm evidently in another universe where "awful" means something different. Weird that we are able to communicate so easily via this message board.

[Ironwood]

Sontaran Nurse was good.

[Mattemeo]

Can't really call it an end-of-season-finale but it definitely feels like this mid season break is going to be a long wait.
Lots of fantastic touches; Rory-Roman truly delivers as a badass, the Sontaran Nurse was a thing of comic beauty, Silurian Victorian-era Adventuress/Crimefighter was so very cool that I expect to see her again (quite the bawdy lesbian joke slipped in there, Moffat). Right now it's still difficult to see where everything will fit in, but I have faith in Moffat's ability to deliver a long con.

Incidentally, while I thought some of the ranting in this thread has been amusing in a sort of deluded 'special edition' manner, when you start wishing ill of someone's children because they don't deliver the kind of rose-tinted spectacle you truly believe you deserve, you're not being funny anymore.

[Reg]

I've got to agree with you there Matt. I realize that Doctor Who brings back precious memories of youth for people but some of you really need to get a grip.

[Ironwood]

Silurian Victorian-era Adventuress/Crimefighter was so very cool that I expect to see her again (quite the bawdy lesbian joke slipped in there, Moffat).

The only reason he did that is so he could make a Victorian Silurian Lesbian joke.  The unashamed cunt.  The Gay thing in Dr Who has now reached such levels of silliness that we specifically put a married male couple in there just so we can CUT THE HEAD OFF ONE OF THEM.  Yeah.  No deep issues about Russel there.

And Double swords eh ?  Really cool.  I mean, Katanas and everything.  You must have been wanking into your hanky at the sight.

Right now it's still difficult to see where everything will fit in, but I have faith in Moffat's ability to deliver a long con.

So much wrong here, it's hard to know where to start.  This sentence is just wrong at almost every word.  Were you seriously surprised by ANYTHING in the last season ?  Did it really not telegraph itself the entire time, right up to the bloody stupid wishing on a star ending ?  That's a strange admission.

I'm not being funny.  I have this recurring nightmare where his kids PICK UP A PEN AT SOME POINT AND START SCRIPTING.  This must be stopped.  Let's Kill Hitler.

[Mattemeo]

And Double swords eh ?  Really cool.  I mean, Katanas and everything.  You must have been wanking into your hanky at the sight.

I didn't feel it was necessary to italicize or stick inverted commas around cool. I was making a statement of fact rather than pronouncing my undying fucking love for the character tropes. But hey, if thats your overriding vision of me, so be it, I'm not one to spoil other people's jollies.

I'm not being funny.

[Ironwood]

Take yersel tae fuck.

[Mattemeo]

You should have done that yourself back on page 23 

[palmer_eldritch]

I liked the fact that the villains of the story appear to be the Church of England.



(I guess the Church of Scotland would have been too scary for children).

I say appear because fuck knows what was really going on.

The gay marriage thing was a bit odd. It's hardly seen as a big thing today (for anyone who doesn't know, you can get married more or less in the UK today if you are a gay couple) so I don't see why people will still be making self-conscious jokes about it in the future.

[Khaldun]

You know the folks who over on Certain Other Threads who are convincing themselves that because Shadowfax is supposed to be grey and in Jackson's movie he's white or some similar thing that Jackson has perpetrated a crime against humankind and produced a cinematic abortion worse than "Gigli"?

Well, that kinda seems well-balanced and proportional to declaring Geek Fatwas against Moffat and his entire extended family because somehow his version of Who doesn't seem as special as watching Tom Baker ham it up with some rubber monsters over a ten-part serial filled with padding and corridor chases.

[palmer_eldritch]

That's what they said, yes.

[HaemishM]

Didn't much like the conclusion of The Almost Flesh. I could almost forgive the sonic screwdriver showing up in two different places at the same time, but  really felt like lazy handwaving. And the explanation for Amy's pregnancy/not-pregnancy really made no fucking sense.

It isn't that the stories aren't as "special" as Tom Baker or whatever it is you think gets my goat about these things, it's that they make no fucking sense even in the nonsensical world of Dr. Who.

[Raguel]

I was wondering about the screwdriver thing too.

[adjunct]

Didn't much like the conclusion of The Almost Flesh. I could almost forgive the sonic screwdriver showing up in two different places at the same time, but  really felt like lazy handwaving. And the explanation for Amy's pregnancy/not-pregnancy really made no fucking sense.

It isn't that the stories aren't as "special" as Tom Baker or whatever it is you think gets my goat about these things, it's that they make no fucking sense even in the nonsensical world of Dr. Who.

Please download the newest episode and get on the same page as the rest of us.

[palmer_eldritch]

I was wondering about the screwdriver thing too.

[HaemishM]

[Khaldun]

Just to be clear: I thought the Ganger two-parter was very muddled in the way it was scripted and staged. Definitely one of the lesser episodes of New Who, whether Moffat or RTD. (Not as bad as last season's excreable Dalek episode, though). The way Smith acted the two-Doctors part was exceptionally well-done, though. I'm still assuming deliberate misdirection on the Ganger Doctor's fate with the assumption that he's the one who died in the first episode of the season--or that the Doctor's going to go back and make another Ganger for the same reason, to pull the same trick on his enemies that they were pulling on him with Amy.

[Fraeg]

 


thats about it for me.

[NowhereMan]

Just to be clear: I thought the Ganger two-parter was very muddled in the way it was scripted and staged. Definitely one of the lesser episodes of New Who, whether Moffat or RTD. (Not as bad as last season's excreable Dalek episode, though). The way Smith acted the two-Doctors part was exceptionally well-done, though. I'm still assuming deliberate misdirection on the Ganger Doctor's fate with the assumption that he's the one who died in the first episode of the season--or that the Doctor's going to go back and make another Ganger for the same reason, to pull the same trick on his enemies that they were pulling on him with Amy.

Issues with this: The ganger doctor  and the Flesh doesn't seem to maintain its form post death. Assuming any sort of continuity it would make it unlikely that the Spaceman meeting Doctor is a Flesh duplicate.

Of course there's that 'assuming any sort of continuity' they've shown they don't give a shit about.

[palmer_eldritch]

Just to be clear: I thought the Ganger two-parter was very muddled in the way it was scripted and staged. Definitely one of the lesser episodes of New Who, whether Moffat or RTD. (Not as bad as last season's excreable Dalek episode, though). The way Smith acted the two-Doctors part was exceptionally well-done, though. I'm still assuming deliberate misdirection on the Ganger Doctor's fate with the assumption that he's the one who died in the first episode of the season--or that the Doctor's going to go back and make another Ganger for the same reason, to pull the same trick on his enemies that they were pulling on him with Amy.

Issues with this: The ganger doctor  and the Flesh doesn't seem to maintain its form post death. Assuming any sort of continuity it would make it unlikely that the Spaceman meeting Doctor is a Flesh duplicate.

Of course there's that 'assuming any sort of continuity' they've shown they don't give a shit about.

[Khaldun]

[HaemishM]

Just saw the "summer finale."

Fuck's sake.

[Raguel]

Just saw the "summer finale."

Fuck's sake.

I thought it was pretty cool. Maybe because I was prepared for the inevitable.

[Slyfeind]

Not bad. Hated the overused browbeating FAIRYTALEFAIRYTALEFAIRYTALEOMGFAIRYTALE at the start, was ready to hate it because it was never going to be through the Doctor's POV. But they shifted it to the Doctor's POV when he showed up, so I was happy.

I agree too much LOOKIT HOW GAY IS EVERYWHERE. The ending...let's face it, most of us knew what was coming. So it was all a matter of how they presented it, because we had to watch the characters figure it out. That was not bad.

I didn't pay much attention to the ganger stuff in the last two episodes. I just barely payed attention enough to know there may be more wax people somewhere.


The Last Centurion was badass. I like what they've done with Rory.

[HaemishM]

Rory was awesome. I continue to maintain that the characters themselves are fantastic but the stories waver between brilliant to pure shit from week to week.

[Tebonas]

Don't get me wrong, the Last Centurion was made of awesome and the fact that Amy talked about him and not the doctor would have made me squee if I was thusly inclined.

The stories and especially the story arcs aren't saved by the awesome characterizations, though.

[Khaldun]

You guys are broken. That was a fun, interesting episode--not just some great character bits (I'd watch a spinoff featuring the Silurian Detective and her lover the maidservant) but a generally well-plotted and interesting story. A few holes, a few problems, but nothing serious. About my only real beef is the way Amy is treated, but I almost wondered if some of the odd character reactions in the beginning involved the Silence and will be seen in a new light later on.

[palmer_eldritch]

Doctor Who in chaos! Private Eye reveals the behind-the-scenes rows placing Britain's best-loved television show at risk! And no full series in 2012!!!

. . . Showrunner and lead writer Steven Moffat has become expert at papering over the cracks, re-ordering episodes and finding creative reasons for spectacular monsters and CGI creations to be given as little screen-time as possible to save cash. But there was general dismay when sci-fi legend Neil Gaiman – whose much-anticipated episode had already had to be held over from the 2010 series due to a lack of funds – had to be informed that a further £200,000 shortfall in the budget meant he would have to rewrite it to include not the alien he had intended but instead an Ood which had been knocking about in the props store since 2006.

This, however, was far from the end of the bad news.

Programme chiefs in London were horrified to learn recently that BBC Wales is proposing not to make a full series of Doctor Who in 2012, but instead to put the programme on hiatus and merely bash out four “specials” as it did in 2009. This will leave an enormous hole in the BBC1 Saturday night schedule and a bigger one in the profits of BBC Worldwide, and will mean the corporation will be paying lead actor Matt Smith to spend most of the rest of this year doing nothing.

http://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=eye_tv&

I knew it!

[Khaldun]

It's a weird story. I wish I understood what the fuck was going on behind the scenes. As far as I can tell the show is making good money for BBC.

[Simond]

Ironwood is secretly director-general of the BBC and is trying to kill it. 

[DraconianOne]

It's a weird story. I wish I understood what the fuck was going on behind the scenes. As far as I can tell the show is making good money for BBC.

Many years ago, I had a conversation with a woman who used to do the wardrobe and makeup for Blakes 7. She said that they were given a small budget (£100 or so?) for each episode and it never changed. It meant that if they had an episode with just three people in it, they could spend more per head than if they had an episode with 20 people in it.  I don't think that's changed much since then.

Anyway, the BBC is, strictly speaking, not a profit making company (i.e. no shareholders) - it's a public service and run according to a public charter. It operates a lot of TV channels and radio channels. Any money that Dr Who might make (through syndication and licensing) gets pumped back into the BBC as a whole, not just Dr Who.  I also recall (but can't remember if it was a blog article or just a conversation) somethinig about the fact that the BBC makes nothing from all the sales of books, toys magazines etc - just the initial licensing cost. If I can be arsed and anyone's at all interested, I'll see if I can chase it up.

[Mrbloodworth]

Thats socialism!