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Posted: **Sat Sep 01, 2012 1:25 pm**

Doctor Who starts up again this evening, with a nice set of mini-epsidoes that lead into these first five episodes:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... Pond_Life/

'Tis also up on YouTube in its original part part segments.

I shall be sorry to see the Ponds go, but am looking forward to seeing how it all pans out

The One Show also did some amusing promotion for the show by getting Dalek voice actor Nicholas Briggs to do tannoy announcements at Slough Train station and its branch of Tesco. I did laugh when Briggs described Slough as 'the heart of the Dalek empire'

Posted: **Sat Sep 01, 2012 9:36 pm**

More than anything the first ep of the series proper felt like a fan script for an audio or short story... a bit too much crammed in (idiotic marital crisis, nanobots, eyestalk zombies, super-hacker, mindwipe) and home in time for tea. Except being an official production, there was a budget to do all that stuff, at least for fifty minutes.

Posted: **Sun Sep 02, 2012 3:47 am**

It was pretty cramped, yeah. And an odd choice to have the grand Dalek return and then fill it with the bronze Daleks and not the new rainbow Daleks that haven't gotten any use yet.

Posted: **Sun Sep 02, 2012 8:08 am**

Throughout the episode, I was focussing more on the three regular leads and Oswin, whom were the more interesting facets of the story.

I couldn't really square the exisitence of the Ayslum, but then the Daleks logic is a bit..odd. They let Dalek Caan live in his 'interesting' state, but destroyed the Ironsides and Bronze Proginator in 'Victory' for being inferior. Perhaps the new Paradigm returned home and found themselves outnumbered by the earlier Daleks and they're going through a process of upgrading...there were a number of red drones seen in the Parliament. BUT! Weren't the Daleks supposed to be all largely defeated at the end of 'Journey's End' - and I thought that the use of other species as Dalek material was pretty abhorrant to a race allied to 'racial purity'. I didn't mind the puppets thing, as there's a precedent for that (although I found the eyestalk and egg wisk deeply silly). On the surface of it, something to pick holes in, but has actually made me more curious about the 'rules' the Daleks live by and made them a more interesting monster for me again , which I liked. Before the episode aired, I was cringing at the thought of their return.

Watching Pondlife helped the 'sell' of where Rory and Amy were at in their relationship, but the problem with their staying behind is you can never be sure how much time has passed unless you're constantly introducing them through the Doctor. I'd also say that the Ponds relationship could have used the touch of RTD to fully flesh out. I like them, and understand where they've come from and what they are about, but I don't feel I've got to know them in the same way as Rose. That's probably a concsious decision from Moffat whose focus has been on the Docotr and the story, rather than assistants , but it just means the harrowing stuff they've been through has felt a bit hollow. Maybe because of Doctor Who's audience reach, they've not wanted to delve too deeply into some of those issues, but I am surprised they've not borrowed a leaf out of teatime soaps Neighbours and Home & Away in how to tackle such mature themes without being too graphic.

I liked Oswin very much, and i didn't see the twist coming (although on second viewing I did pick up on more of the visual clues) and thought that was very well done.

SPOILER! (select to read)
Although I do think its a shame that because of press releases, we know Jenna-Louise Coleman will be turning up later in the series. it would have been more dramatic for her to be introduced in the Christmas Special and to go 'ooh its her!'. The other nagging doubt I came away with was that her story arc is, in some way, going to mirror River Song's, in so much that we know her final fate which is a shame to see repeated.

Posted: **Sun Sep 02, 2012 10:05 am**

SPOILER! (select to read)
You mean he's not going to have a Dalek Companion

Posted: **Sun Sep 02, 2012 10:16 am**

yes!

Posted: **Sun Sep 02, 2012 12:10 pm**

SPOILER! (select to read)
Does anyone else get the feeling the Doctor will come across the Alaska again, this time before its crash. He'll have the dilemma of whether or not to save Oswin, knowing her terrible fate if he doesn't, but also knowing that by saving her he also deletes the whole adventure in the Dalek asylum (no crash / Oswin in the crash = no Carmen signal = the Daleks aren't alerted to an intruder = no need to kidnap the Doctor et al). This means Dalek Oswin won't delete the Doctor from the Daleks' collective memory, and also possibly the Rory & Amy are not reconciled. What to do, what to do...

Thoughts?

Posted: **Sun Sep 02, 2012 6:46 pm**

Six Target reprints for four quid, might interest a few people;

http://www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/w ... tId=255864

Posted: **Sun Sep 02, 2012 8:58 pm**

Rack 'n Ruin wrote:
SPOILER! (select to read)
Does anyone else get the feeling the Doctor will come across the Alaska again, this time before its crash. He'll have the dilemma of whether or not to save Oswin, knowing her terrible fate if he doesn't, but also knowing that by saving her he also deletes the whole adventure in the Dalek asylum (no crash / Oswin in the crash = no Carmen signal = the Daleks aren't alerted to an intruder = no need to kidnap the Doctor et al). This means Dalek Oswin won't delete the Doctor from the Daleks' collective memory, and also possibly the Rory & Amy are not reconciled. What to do, what to do...
Thoughts?

SPOILER! (select to read)
I wondered that too, but I thought well, he doesn't actually know what she looks like so perhaps not. I think he was quite pleased that she wiped the Daleks memory of him, which gives him a sort of freedom that he's not had when facing the Daleks, and an advantage over them as they don't know who he is now. I think he'd find that quite difficult to let go. I suspect that he'll meet her earlier in her personal time line and just drop her off in time to crash and be converted, horrible though that is.

Posted: **Mon Sep 03, 2012 3:11 am**

I liked it. Although given the Dalek penchant for racial purity, the mix does seem a bit odd. And I thought the little blobs of hate that were too twisted for normal service got put into Special Weapon Dalek casings. Of course, even the Daleks aren't nuts enough to put raving psychotics into Dalek casings like those. And it does answer the question of what happened to any Daleks that survived encounters with the Doctor.

Posted: **Mon Sep 03, 2012 2:23 pm**

Probably the best Dalek story since Rose left the first time. I actually thought it was nice and straightforward myself rather than overcrowded.

Stuff what I liked:

Acknowledgement the new Daleks look crap by shoving them at the back and painting them a different colour.

Special Weapons Dalek! If only it had remembered how powerful its gun was.

To all intents and purposes- Robomen!

Good performances all round.

I'd heard the new girl was going to be in it before watching, and was somewhat worried it would be an overdone "LOOK WHO IT IS!!!" style surprise apperance what would be meaningless to the vast bulk of the audience who don't follow news stories about Who and probably couldn't tell you the name of any of the lead actors bar Matt Smith. Instead, nicely low key intro as just a guest character.

Nick Briggs, as always, excelled at the Dalek voices. Shame though, considering Big Finish has shown he's very good at recreating any era of Dalek voice you might care to mention, I couldn't spot any voices to match the old cases (who wouldn't love a bit of Roy Skelton?).

Skaro! A surprisingly long time coming. On the small phone screen I was watching on I wasn't completely sure, but I'll bet the city was a faithful CGI recreation of the original model from their first story, yes? I'm not even going to question how the planet is back as the Time War chronology is a big mess now anyway (plus him calling it the original "Planet of the Daleks" suggests maybe they renamed one or more of their colony worlds Skaro, which could have been the one/s destroyed in Rememberance/Time War..).

The tweak to the logo so that bloody annoying DW thing (fine by itself, completely redundant in the full title) isn't stuck in the middle anymore. Apparently we're going to get slightly different titles every week as part of the "Movie" feel, but I hope this one sticks.

The Bad:

New Girl was written pretty much exactly the same way as the increasingly annoying River Song. Not necessarily a huge problem as I could easily see her coming back as her own Grandmother or twin sister and therefore might have a different character but as is so often the case with River I did have an overwhelming urge for someone to slap her during her almost Tenth Doctorish smug moments. I was certainly glad the fairly obvious twist came to pass.

Did I miss an explanation as to why the Daleks blew up the planet at the end despite starting the episode saying they'd never do that?

Shouldn't the fairly small room full of survivors from original series battles (most of which didn't have any survivors, but hey...) have had more of the old props in it?

Posted: **Mon Sep 03, 2012 8:58 pm**

not much to add to the above, i think i agree with most points raised. I thought the idea of divorce was a bit of a stretch, but hey. i need another run through to try and spot out the different daleks, they all kinda blurred together to me. i did rather love the view of how the bonkers daleks see themselves, there was some great camerawork there.

and of course, the daleks are now asking the question that should never be answered THIS IS NOW YOUR STORY ARC DUN-DUN-DUN though i do hope there's more to it than that.

also with the guest star, everything about her *seems* very deja vu in terms of story, as much as i rather liked her, so again, i'm hoping theres more to it than FORSHADOWING /neon

still, the guest stars alone for future eps have me excited enough, so even if it never graduates from OBVIOUS PLOT IS OBVIOUS, I'll still be well entertained, I think.

Posted: **Sun Sep 09, 2012 9:12 am**

Great googly moogly, 'Dinosaurs On A Spaceship' was enormous fun. Chris Chibnall finally hit the mark with Who on this one. His previous outings ('42', 'The Hungry Earth/ Cold Blood') haven't been the best, but this was just glorious. Big daft plot, lots of fun, Mark Williams, and Egyptian queen, a bag boo-hiss villain and Mitchell & Webb as some very stroppy robots. Brilliant.

I can see this being the sort of episode that a lot of po-faced fans will hate for not being 'serious' (forgetting again that Who is not Trek or B5), and being far too light and frothy, but god damnit, what's not to like about Dinosaurs roaming around on a spaceship? Excellent FX work in the episode, except for the odly cheap looking Indian Space Agency. I've seen more futuristic call centres.

Posted: **Sun Sep 09, 2012 4:20 pm**

Skyquake87 wrote:I can see this being the sort of episode that a lot of po-faced fans will hate for not being 'serious' (forgetting again that Who is not Trek or B5), and being far too light and frothy, but god damnit, what's not to like about Dinosaurs roaming around on a spaceship? Excellent FX work in the episode, except for the odly cheap looking Indian Space Agency. I've seen more futuristic call centres.

All of the various Star Trek TV series do have light-hearted episodes (and they're actually some of the best and most memorable episodes).

Posted: **Sun Sep 09, 2012 4:21 pm**

If it's a large state owned bureaucracy they probbly haven't updated the furniture in 40 years and last time they did it was probably done by the lowest bidder:D

Posted: **Sun Sep 09, 2012 11:42 pm**

This episode was a lot of fun. Nothing deep and depressing, but fun and light-hearted. The perfect way to unwind after a weekend of enforced overtime.

And Rory's father was great.

Posted: **Mon Sep 10, 2012 12:01 pm**

Hmm, seems everyone found the episode to be just light hearted fun. While it was a fun watch, I thought it had it's share of dark moments too. After all, we had:

The sleeping (and unarmed) Silurians being systematically woken and marched to their deaths at the airlocks.
The cute Triceratops being killed by Mitchell-bot & Webb-bot, who had previously appeared to be more likely to be simply comic relief.
The Doctor basically executing Solomon and the robots (some may say fair enough, but stilll a cold-blooded killing in my book).

Overall though, a very lively and fun episode. I thought Rory & Amy were hardly in it though. Already being shunted towards the door marked exit?

Posted: **Mon Sep 10, 2012 3:47 pm**

The executions seem to play into the larger arc this series.

All in favour, really, as it means fewer "Batman being accessory to murder by giving far too many chances to the Joker" moments... pirate chap could easily have been shot earlier if characters had been more decisive.

Posted: **Thu Sep 13, 2012 10:36 am**

Rack 'n Ruin wrote:Hmm, seems everyone found the episode to be just light hearted fun. While it was a fun watch, I thought it had it's share of dark moments too. After all, we had:

And a villain who changes his plan from "Steal dinosaurs" to "Grab a famous woman for heavily implied repeated beating and rape".

A fairly harmless episode all round, it didn't seem especially funny and I'm not sure the cast needed to be that big (Rory's Dad had to really struggle to get a sub plot) but was fast paced and harmless enough. Best use of the new Sillurians as well. Throw the rest out the airlock as well.

Posted: **Mon Sep 17, 2012 12:29 am**

A Town Called Mercy - Not bad, and entertaining in and of itself, but beyond 'lets have the doctor vent a bit', and 'lets make the ponds a bit more nervous of him' it's hard to see how this slots into the overall series arc. it definitely did work well as a stand alone episode, which seems to be more the intention with this series.

however my epic man-crush on ben browder was entirely not satisfied, and the plot far too easily resolved. I didn't believe that the doctor didnt see it coming, or that he didn't have a better plan than 'aye-up, leggit' whilst reusing the plot of 'the three amigos' as a distraction.

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Doctor Who 2012 / 2013 Series 7 or whatever it is

Doctor Who 2012 / 2013 Series 7 or whatever it is