quote:The good news about the kissing thing - sad as it is - is that, since we're seeing their relationship backwards, there should be lots of kissing from now on! I could never imagine the Doctor in a relationship before, but those two make such a cute couple.
You are all taking the whole moving in opposite directions thing too literally. If this were actually true, then there would never be a point in time when they had both experienced the same events. The journals would never overlap. That isn't true. There is no reason to believe that because this is the first time The Doctor kisses river, its the last time she will kiss him.
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quote:Originally posted by Kama: except she believes it.
There is no reason to believe she believes this in the literal way you guys are interpreting it. She knows that there are times when she and The Doctor meet up when they have shared experiences. She knows what she said isn't literally true.
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quote:Originally posted by Kama: I mean she believes she'll never kiss him again.
I don't think that's at all clear. She knows that a day will come when they kiss for the last time. She clearly fears that day. I think her reaction was more consistent with fearing it would be her last kiss than it is with believing it would be their last kiss.
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Cross-posted from sake, but did anybody else notice the paintings on facing walls in the little girl's room? They seem to be of a woman holding up her skirts, but if you look at them upside-down, they look like portraits of members of The Silence.
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Is anyone else wondering, how what looks like a physical child regenerates at all? And if she does, what does she regenerate into? Another physical child? The Doctor's apparent physiological age (if that's the right term) has fluctuated with each regeneration, but he was only ever a little child in his first incarnation. Is there a rule of Time Lord biology that they can only regenerate into a body that is somewhat similar in 'age'?
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I seem to recall an episode where whatsherface, the Fourth Doctor's Time Lady companion, gets to decide what sort of appearance she wants when she regenerates. Of course, that ignores the question of whether a little kid, even a Time Kid, can handle suddenly being a grownup...
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Romana's regeneration from Romana I to Romana II was pretty goofy; all the DW writers since seem to have ignored it as best they could!
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quote:The good news about the kissing thing - sad as it is - is that, since we're seeing their relationship backwards, there should be lots of kissing from now on! I could never imagine the Doctor in a relationship before, but those two make such a cute couple.
You are all taking the whole moving in opposite directions thing too literally. If this were actually true, then there would never be a point in time when they had both experienced the same events. The journals would never overlap. That isn't true. There is no reason to believe that because this is the first time The Doctor kisses river, its the last time she will kiss him.
Yeah. Other than the first time he meets her being the last time she does, none of their other meetings have been in a strict chronological order. And in the Library, just before she dies, she talks about the last time she saw him: he showed up at her doorstep with flowers and a haircut and took her to the singing towers of where ever. I can't believe he would take her on a romantic date like that to say good bye and not kiss her.
Unless--When the Doctor died at the beginning of The Impossible Astronaut, time rewrote itself, and now all of River's memories of the Doctor from latter incarnations no longer exist. And in this new timeline, they really are living literally back to front.
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quote:Originally posted by Amilia: Unless--When the Doctor died at the beginning of The Impossible Astronaut, time rewrote itself, and now all of River's memories of the Doctor from latter incarnations no longer exist. And in this new timeline, they really are living literally back to front.
Rory remembers being the last centurion. So maybe River's memories wouldn't reset.
Question: In "The Time of Angels" doesn't the Doctor say something to River about being an archaelogist and she looks surprised or says something? I got the impression she wasn't one at that point. (I'll go check.) I bring this up because in "Day of the Moon" Rory asked her what kind of doctor she was and she answered "archaelogist" and put her gun back in the holster. So maybe they aren't completely back to front.
Also, the last meeting River has with the Doctor before the library is when he takes her someplace, and also gives her a sonic screwdriver. So they aren't completely back-to-front.
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He introduced her as "Professor River Song" and she replied "I'm going to become a professor?" or something like that.
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Yeah, I just saw that. Oh, well. There is still the meeting just before the library, which we haven't seen.
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I just have a feeling that over the last year or so Moffat has probably come up with some clever payoff to the 'backwards' relationship thing and from now on that's how he'll describe it to us. Until this episode, they just seemed to be meeting out of order.
But I get the sensation from this last episode that he's retconning that and hoping that no-one notices or minds too much.
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quote:Originally posted by Bella Bee: I just have a feeling that over the last year or so Moffat has probably come up with some clever payoff to the 'backwards' relationship thing and from now on that's how he'll describe it to us. Until this episode, they just seemed to be meeting out of order.
But I get the sensation from this last episode that he's retconning that and hoping that no-one notices or minds too much.
If he's retconning it, he started off very badly by opening this season with 11 and River going through their journals in the cafe and then having Amy explain that they are syncing their diaries because they never meet in the right order. It's one thing to try to get away with retconning something done a couple seasons back and hoping people will miss the inconsistency. Its quite another to do it in the very same episode. Moffat's a better writer than that. At least, I hope so.
[ May 05, 2011, 04:38 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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This really was a very bad two-parter where plot or coherence were involved. Some nice creepy moments, but they were moments, they didn't amount to a coherent something.
It pulled an explanation of last season's "Silence" mystery which was both out of its ass and doesn't have anything to do with anything that happened there, and then it decided to introduce a new mystery (the Astronaut) which didn't really seem to have anything to do with anything concerning the Silence aliens.
Within the two-parter itself there were unnecessary time-jumps -- why the gap of months between Part 1 & 2, why the time-jumps at the beginnig, and events that didn't seem to lead anywhere (shooting at the astronaut in part 1, the Doctor's death, etc, etc)
I don't have faith this will make sense, ever. I'm starting to think that Moffat is an excellent episode writer, but a terrible arc designer. Either that or he was just thrown random executive meddling (we want something in America, something with an astronaut perhaps, we want the Silence arc clumsily wrapped-up, and we want possible romantic/sexual implications with both River and Amy, and we want the Doctor dying for real, and we want in a single two-part episode, you have two days to write the whole thing, now start!)
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It was the one with the Starship UK. And there was one on right after with Winston Churchill and the Daleks.
I've been wanting to watch it forever but was intimidated because I didn't know where to start. But it was surprisingly easy to jump in at a random episode. I think within five minutes I had a big geeky grin plastered on my face.
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I think you should go back and watch season 5 from the beginning - there are things in the first episodes that become more important later on. And welcome to the "club."
Also, for those with Netflix, they now have seasons 1-5 altogether. The image is of the 11th doctor and Amy, but that's misleading. But you can catch up on the most recent seasons in order that way. They have the specials with David Tennant separately.
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quote: I don't have faith this will make sense, ever. I'm starting to think that Moffat is an excellent episode writer, but a terrible arc designer.
I am with you. I hope I am wrong, but I am getting the feeling that Moffat is more interested in a cool or memorable scene than consistency.
6.2 Spoiler:
For example, why was the Doctor tied up in Area 51? If Nixon was on his side and at his disposal, who put him in area 51 and why? Why pretend to hunt and kill Rory and Amy and go through the effort to be in that prison and how did the Tardis get there? Maybe something in those three months will explain it, but for now it feels like Moffat wanted some iconic shots and wrote the scenes to get those shots.
Great ideas...but I am a little worried about execution. This last episode (6.3) started off great but spiraled down to some truly cringe worthy moments.
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The reason the Doctor was tied up in Area 51 was that he needed to have that special material used to construct the prison so that he could talk to the other CIA agent without any silence around. There was no other way to make certain that the silence weren't around.
They needed a reason to bring the 4 of them together without alerting the Silence.
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There's also still the Doctor's daughter running around from the David Tennet episode called "The Doctor's Daughter". She did regen at the end of the episode.
Probably not. Especially since the actress is getting married to David Tennet.
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But I think Jenny would be too obvious an answer. I hope Neil Gaiman has pulled out all the weird stops next week. When he's good, he's really good.
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So, so tired of the fake deaths. Counting the Doctor, this is five fake deaths in the first three episodes alone. Steven Moffat needs to cut it out. It loses impact when you do it every darn episode.
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quote:Originally posted by Belle: Agreed. How many times is Rory going to die anyway?
Agreed. Though I somewhat understand their reasoning. It's less about Rory dying than it is about Amy saving Rory, and putting an end to any possibility of a Doctor/Amy romantic pairing.
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quote:Originally posted by Belle: Agreed. How many times is Rory going to die anyway?
Agreed. Though I somewhat understand their reasoning. It's less about Rory dying than it is about Amy saving Rory, and putting an end to any possibility of a Doctor/Amy romantic pairing.
In the second episode, when amy and rory come out of the body bags, the Doctor pulls rory out first and gives him a hug before he goes to amy. I thought that was an intentional decision to help squash the amy/doctor romance stuff.
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quote:Originally posted by Belle: Agreed. How many times is Rory going to die anyway?
Agreed. Though I somewhat understand their reasoning. It's less about Rory dying than it is about Amy saving Rory, and putting an end to any possibility of a Doctor/Amy romantic pairing.
In the second episode, when amy and rory come out of the body bags, the Doctor pulls rory out first and gives him a hug before he goes to amy. I thought that was an intentional decision to help squash the amy/doctor romance stuff.
He may be goofy, but he isn't an idiot.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Blue Peter, a kids' show in the U.K., held a competition for kids to design a TARDIS console. The winning design was used in "The Doctor's Wife."
quote:Originally posted by lem: ...It means we know who died in the first episode?
If that actually happens, I will throw something at the TV. But I'm pretty sure there'll be more to it than that.
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I agree. It is too easy and "out" too early in the season. Smells more like an obvious red herring. However, I could see developing him as a Doctor equivalent who sacrifices himself so The Silence think the Doctor is dead.
Maybe it was the original Doctor in the space suite who shot the clone. Or maybe the original Doctor is the one who died and we are left with the clone so the audience has to come to terms that it truly is alive with a soul.
Just thoughts, not predictions.
Posts: 2445 | Registered: Oct 2004
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A couple of things that I wonder about - in "The Impossible Astronaut" when they are having the picnic, the Doctor says that he must have had wine before, then drinks and he hates it. But in "The Lodger," he drank wine and hated it then, too. So he didn't remember? Maybe because 200 years had passed ...
And in "The Doctor's Wife," when he tells the TARDIS that he borrowed her, she says, “Borrowing implies the eventual intention to return the thing that was taken. What makes you think I would ever give you back?” Is there possibly something the TARDIS could do to bring the Doctor back? The Master was brought back after death, although his return was messed up by Lucy Saxon.
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Unless the Doctor explicitly says that someone can't be brought back, they can be brought back. Also, if the Doctor says someone can't be brought back, they still can.
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CaySedai, remember that Doctor Who gets a new body every so often, metamorphosizing or metasticizing or something so he can be "renewed." So each new incarnation of the doctor may not know if he likes wine or not.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: CaySedai, remember that Doctor Who gets a new body every so often, metamorphosizing or metasticizing or something so he can be "renewed." So each new incarnation of the doctor may not know if he likes wine or not.
Irrelevant. All of CaySedai's examples were of the 11th Doctor.
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