posted
I agreed with Bella too, but one bad episode isn't enough to dim my optimism. There were plenty of Tennant episodes that were as bad as this one was, and some that were worse, but that didn't stop Tennant from becoming *my* Doctor in a way that nobody had managed since Tom Baker.
:: laugh :: I initially wrote "Tom Davidson" there and had to go back and fix it.
Posts: 1087 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
Or, you can start with the current series, episode one - it's a good introduction. You won't get most of the reviews because they'll talk about the past, but the show itself will make sense.
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Kat's right. I'd start with Eccleston, but if you don't want to sit through 4 seasons, this is not a bad place to start.
Posts: 354 | Registered: Jan 2006
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I've only ever watched the current series, beginning with Eccleson. I've never seen any classic Doctor Who.
Netflix has them all, and series 1 (2005??) is even available for instant viewing. It may take a couple of episodes to get into it.
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So I can just start with the relatively new series(the one that started in 2005) and I don't need to catch up on the 40 odd years of Doctor Who before it, then?
Posts: 76 | Registered: Aug 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Jenos: So I can just start with the relatively new series(the one that started in 2005) and I don't need to catch up on the 40 odd years of Doctor Who before it, then?
Definitely!
In fact, I tried to watch some of the older episodes and didn't really like them. Of course, I might have started with the wrong ones...
All the relevant history is woven into the new series. You don't need to know anything else.
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posted
The older ones definitely have a different feeling to them. A little more philosophical, a little less action oriented. And, of course, they were made in different decades, which all have their own... flavor.
Posts: 354 | Registered: Jan 2006
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Uggh. I am seriously underwhelmed with the third episode. Bahh...
Nothing seems to fit. The show seems to be degressing with each episode-- a hodgepodge of good ideas with bad dialogue, acting, and a script that feels a need to spell out everything in a 1st grade manner. Episode One offered so much hope.
The stories seem forced--like we are being forced to hurry to different plot points the writers think are cool at the expense of enjoyable characters. I think seeing the crack in the last two episodes says a lot about the style of series 5.
Nothing subtle. I almost feel insulted, like I am too dumb as an audience to figure out figure out any and every scene. It just seems so in-your-face, fast, and undeveloped. I'm at a loss of words.
Next episode has one of my favorite bad guys and River. If they screw it up I will be ready to write off series 5.
posted
It was pretty awful. First, we get to see the Doctor having a temper tantrum. Then we get the new and "improved" Dalek Power Rangers.
Honestly, the Tenth Doctor refused to wipe out the Daleks, even at the cost of Earth, and was horrified when the Half Doctor did so. One regeneration later, and he's willing to obliterate them all even at the risk of destroying Earth? It just isn't plausible.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I dunno, Lisa. Have you seen the original show? The first doctor is a crotchety *******. It just doesn't seem plausible that he goes from that to Ten. I don't think the number of regenerations between personality is relevant--there is no transition, merely a different personality. Which makes one wonder whether the doctor in one form shares identity with the doctor in another.
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
I see the cries of "RUINED FOREVER" are going strong.
Yes Ten was mad at the prospect of causing Genocide but he was slightly influenced by events of 'Daleks of Manhattan' thinking he might be able to reason with them or reprogram them.
He's probly mellowed since then understanding that yeah, Daleks just can't be allowed to roam free and slaughter the cosmos Ten was overweighed by the guilt of causing the death of the Time Lords Eleven doesn't have that baggage and knows what must be done.
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I think early in the season, the ninth doctor would have wiped out the Dalek's if he had a choice (though not if it took out humanity to do so). And obviously, whatever 8 or 9 (we don't know when that regeneration occurred) did wiped out almost all daleks at the cost of the rest of the time lords.
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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posted
Ehh. The show's good . . . great even. The problem is that it's too "old Who".
The new episodes are drenched in "old Who" mentality. From the writing to the cinematography to the acting, this is far more akin to the Peter Davidson or Tom Baker eras than to the Eccleston or Tenant. Listen to the theme song -- it's closer to the 80's version than anything.
Unfortunately, this creates two problems: discontent of the "new Who" crowd and the story length. These stores really deserve a longer format, more akin to the "old Who" two, three, or more parters. They're effectively wasting a lot of great ideas due to time constraints.
Really, imagine a Tom Baker rendition of this last episode -- with the budget of the current dalek episode! It would have made a fantastic three parter.
I think that Moffat is really going to shine with the multi-episode story arcs. But then, I guess, we can wait and see.
Posts: 688 | Registered: Nov 2008
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You know, I want to like this season. I really do. I'm trying to think positive... But this has been two weeks of blah episodes. I haven't been this disappointed in the show since the farting Aliens of London (so I know it can still get better ).
Big-butted rainbow-skittle Daleks don't do it for me. And the historian in me wishes that, instead of hugging him, the Doctor would have a chat with Winston about India, Kenya, and the rest of the Empire - and what a bad idea it would be to kill a bunch of people trying hold on to it. But hey. Overthinking again.
There's something very off about Amy, too. She was cute as a little kid, but now I hope we're supposed to dislike/distrust her as much as I do. (Not remembering the Daleks? But she remembers that stupid 'Oi, Churchill!' insurance advert). She seems to be missing something human - maybe she's been replaced by a robot.
This used to be my favourite British TV show. I want it back.
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
The thing about not remembering the Daleks is deliberate, to show evidence that something is "very" wrong with the Universe.
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But Amy just seems bizarre - and not only because it seems like every time since the first episode, she's been cleverer than the Doctor (even Churchill almost thinks so). The Doctor, who has wandered about trying to brain-damage harmless animals, nearly got the world destroyed hitting Daleks with spanners and opening his big mouth, and then nearly allowing London to get blown up by a massive bomb which took about half an hour to arm (because there were no other options - hello, spaceship/teleport/screwdriver/anything).
And she knows everything about the Doctor, where he'll go, what he'll do, what he should do...
In this episode, Amy completely saves the day by calmly ordering up the space planes, defusing the bomb, rescuing the Doctor's keys and cheering him up (while the Doctor sort of flaps about looking confused and shouting). She probably could have defeated the Daleks, too, if she had seen them before.
I wonder who she really is. Because, if she's human, I want to know who's stolen the Doctor's brain.
Posts: 1528 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
I watched the first new episode with my friends, andreally liked it! Are most episodes that fun, or was it special because it was the premier? Right now I'm planning on watching this season and just asking my friends any questions I have about the story.
But the main part I liked about what I've seen is the sillyness.
Posts: 856 | Registered: Jun 2007
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posted
You mean you watched the plastic people episode? That one's pretty representative of the first season.
Posts: 354 | Registered: Jan 2006
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Ah the newest season. OK. That's still... up in the air. There's usually some amount of silliness. I'd say usually not quite that much.
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
Well first things first campanions generally are supposed to be major contributors to solving the days problems and not just being TheWatson, I like it this way. If your right then there's some subtle foreshadowing going on.
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The criticism is interesting. It's funny that people weren't more critical when the Master was flying through the air and shooting lightning bolts out of his hands.
Posts: 688 | Registered: Nov 2008
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posted
This weekend should be a good episode. Moffat, Weeping Angels, River Song... that's a lot of strong ingredients.
Posts: 1261 | Registered: Apr 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Herblay: The criticism is interesting. It's funny that people weren't more critical when the Master was flying through the air and shooting lightning bolts out of his hands.
I didn't like that much either.
Actually, I didn't particularly care for any of the specials shown last year.
I liked the first episode of this season but I just watched the most recent one (yes, I'm a bit behind) and I'm afraid this season may not be working out for me either.
I'll give it more chances...I really will...but there's something off about it.
I'm not sure about Amy. She seems to know more than she should know, and not just in the way Bella was suggesting. She seems to know things about the Doctor, like that he's very old. She seems to really know him and while I get that she ran into him for the first time when she was eight, she didn't get a lot of information from him at that time. Realistically, she should still be getting to know him in the same way that the other three companions did at first. Yet there already seems to be an intimacy between the two of them that I can't quite justify with the whole imaginary friend thing.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote: She seems to know things about the Doctor, like that he's very old. She seems to really know him and while I get that she ran into him for the first time when she was eight, she didn't get a lot of information from him at that time. Realistically, she should still be getting to know him in the same way that the other three companions did at first. Yet there already seems to be an intimacy between the two of them that I can't quite justify with the whole imaginary friend thing.
Absolutely. If she doesn't turn out to be psychic or someone who has known him before somehow, I'm going to be very annoyed about this. It feels like we have missed a few episodes of development in their relationship. It's especially odd, because she knows everything about him, but he doesn't (and we don't) really know anything about her - nothing of her family, her interests, her current employment, not even who she's marrying - it's been two years since we knew anything about her. I'm just trying to hold out hope that Amy really is meant to be important somehow - that she's not just a Mary-Sue.
As for the specials - I hated the lightning hands and the flying and the skeletor thing. However, the failings of that story doesn't do anything to improve the state of this last episode.
Posts: 1528 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
What did she know that would make her "psychic"? She seemed as clueless as Churchill.
It is a kids show, after all. From the time of Hartnell, it's been the job of the companions to solve the mysteries. You can't just have an omnipotent Doctor do EVERYTHING. He's the most intelligent being in the universe, but he picks his companions because they're clever . . . sometimes all the intelligence in the world doesn't amount to a hill of beans against imagination and common sense.
Still, other than being particularly precocious, empathetic, and clever, I can't think of one instance where she's displayed knowledge that she shouldn't have.
As far as familiarity, she has been dreaming about the Doctor most of her life. Whether she knows him or not, she will think she knows him. He's been a core part of her childhood memory. He's HER raggety Doctor.
Posts: 688 | Registered: Nov 2008
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posted
My theory on her and the dr was that they interacted heavily while he was transforming. In a way, they both hit the other at a formulative time and maybe influenced as well. With all that energy and life force stuff floating about, it could happen. Her raggety Dr could be who he really is.
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The Doctor talked about his new face and body, his new tongue. He blew magic gold-dust smoke out in front of her, and he talked about his new body not being "done". Maybe a little confusing for her at the time, I'll give you that. But then he went into his speach to the Atraxi, and the eye showed the different faces of the Doctor -- as he stated how he was the protector of mankind and all.
She had two years to puzzle it out. I don't think that the conclusion of him being "old" is completely out of reach.
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Also, you questioned the plausibility of the Doctor wanting to destroy the daleks? He basically sacrificed his own race to destroy them, didn't he? Eccleston would have wiped them out a thousand times over. So would the second Doctor (this episode was an homage to the first dalek ep' that the second Doctor did).
I think people are being overly critical. It's still a better show than about anything else . . . other than Lost, that is.
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quote:Originally posted by Herblay: Also, you questioned the plausibility of the Doctor wanting to destroy the daleks? He basically sacrificed his own race to destroy them, didn't he?
Not really. He intentionally locked the Time Lords away because they'd become corrupted.
quote:Originally posted by Herblay: Eccleston would have wiped them out a thousand times over. So would the second Doctor (this episode was an homage to the first dalek ep' that the second Doctor did).
How was it an homage?
quote:Originally posted by Herblay: I think people are being overly critical. It's still a better show than about anything else . . . other than Lost, that is.
Maybe. I still don't like the Dalek Power Rangers. Next thing, they'll be taking away the plungers and egg wisks.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by scholarette: My theory on her and the dr was that they interacted heavily while he was transforming. In a way, they both hit the other at a formulative time and maybe influenced as well. With all that energy and life force stuff floating about, it could happen. Her raggety Dr could be who he really is.
So she's the Doctor-Amy? I don't think so.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I think it is as simple as them wanting to tell a story but the story needed them to have a relationship/chemistry/understanding of each other, so the writers are just expediting the process for the sake of story flow.
I don't read anything into it.
Posts: 2445 | Registered: Oct 2004
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: I loved Waters of Mars from last year. I hope it wins the Hugo - RTD deserves it for that one.
Planet of the Dead can fall into the fiery pit for all I care.
Waters of Mars was definitely the best of last year's episodes, and Planet of the Dead was pretty horrible, it's true. The Doctor Who episode since the 2005 relaunch that I'd most like to nominate for a Hugo, though, would be Midnight. Man, that was an interesting episode, and felt more like real science fiction than pretty much any other episode made in the last five years.
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
quote:Originally posted by Lisa:
quote:Originally posted by Herblay: Also, you questioned the plausibility of the Doctor wanting to destroy the daleks? He basically sacrificed his own race to destroy them, didn't he?
Not really. He intentionally locked the Time Lords away because they'd become corrupted.
quote:Originally posted by Herblay: Eccleston would have wiped them out a thousand times over. So would the second Doctor (this episode was an homage to the first dalek ep' that the second Doctor did).
How was it an homage?
quote:Originally posted by Herblay: I think people are being overly critical. It's still a better show than about anything else . . . other than Lost, that is.
Maybe. I still don't like the Dalek Power Rangers. Next thing, they'll be taking away the plungers and egg wisks.
No the Doctor literally did wipe out the Time Lords HE DID IT, he killed them with The Moment, no iffs or buts the Time Lock wasn't his doing, in fact he ended the Time Lock effectivelly once he wiped out both sides, he was willing to do this because the Time Lords had become monstrous as the Daleks.
Eleven is able to wipe them out again because he nolonger has the guilt and baggage over what he did.
Nine was outraged at the Daleks and seeing one still alive and kicking was a slap to the face.
Ten mellowed a little and proceeded to the next stage as it were of grief, a combination of guilt and denial and a willingness to go to extremes to try to save the Daleks if they could be redeemed in their pitiable state.
Eleven has evolved past that, even if they could be redeemed its not worth sacrificing people for.
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I think this whole season is taking place in an alternate universe, explaining the whole Crack-in-Time thing. Remember at the end of the first episode this season, where, for just a moment, Amy closed her eyes and flashed back to her young self, who was in the process of hearing the Doctor's Box return? Then Amy woke up in her bed. But this Amy, like people are pointing out, has no memory of the Daleks/Stolen Planet, etc. I think the big reveal of this season is that during the tumultuous regeneration period, the Doctor slipped into another time-stream. Posts: 3516 | Registered: Sep 2002
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I think this whole season is taking place in an alternate universe, explaining the whole Crack-in-Time thing. Remember at the end of the first episode this season, where, for just a moment, Amy closed her eyes and flashed back to her young self, who was in the process of hearing the Doctor's Box return? Then Amy woke up in her bed. But this Amy, like people are pointing out, has no memory of the Daleks/Stolen Planet, etc. I think the big reveal of this season is that during the tumultuous regeneration period, the Doctor slipped into another time-stream.
Which will allow them to retcon out everyone on Earth knowing about aliens. Giving Moffat a brand new slate. That acually makes a lot of sense.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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It had similarities to a few Patrick Troughton episodes:
- In Power of the Daleks, the daleks claim to serve the colony. They repeatedly say "We are your servants." << Queue the "We are your soldiers.>> - When the Doctor says the line about wanting to see the "final end" of the daleks, he's quoting an exact line from Terry Nation's Troughton story "The Evil of the Daleks".
Posts: 688 | Registered: Nov 2008
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I think this whole season is taking place in an alternate universe, explaining the whole Crack-in-Time thing. Remember at the end of the first episode this season, where, for just a moment, Amy closed her eyes and flashed back to her young self, who was in the process of hearing the Doctor's Box return?
I have a similar theory. I think the Doctor has an out of sequence relationship with Amy. The flash back to young Amy hearing the Doctor's Box return foreshadows that. He doesn't remember it because it hasn't happened for him yet. Something traumatic has happened, likely due to the cracks in the University, so she doesn't remember it either. It would explain why she seems to know so much about the doctor and became so obsessed with him as a child, yet doesn't remember the Daleks.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
I have not seen a single episode this year, but from these descriptions I have one idea...
Amy is about to marry the Doctor.
She runs off with the earlier Doctor because she knows that he'll need her to become the Doctor who marries her.
Sure, he's a later version of the same doctor, but, well Time is this wambly pambly wringy stringy thing that...
End of this companions run--Amy will refuse to go through with this marriage, leaving the heart broken doctor even more depressed.
She will, secretly, have his child--though possibly with no sex having officially occurred between them.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
And then she'll turn out to have been River Song all along.
Interesting, but unlikely. Besides, the Doctor seems to have done the marriage thing (Queen Elizabeth I) quite recently. And he's bad at weddings, especially his own.
I love the idea of a recon though - I don't see how the story could continue if aliens were just part of everyday life. I mean, Donna didn't notice the disasters and general weirdness, but everyone else was starting to get a bit blasé. I wonder what the time stream difference would mean for Captain Jack, though, if he shows up again.
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