The Doctor Who 2014/15 Thread

Chat about stuff other than Transformers.
User avatar
Brave Maximus
Posts: 5877
Joined: Sat Jun 08, 2002 11:50 pm
Location: Gehenna

Post by Brave Maximus »

Rack 'n Ruin wrote:Can't say I noticed any Clara is Missy clues myself. Can you elaborate please?
I'd need to go back over the episode for more....

But it's the general "boyfriend" thing. Mentioned too many times in one episode to be a coincidence that at the end of the episode she says it.

Just my 2 cents...

Also, starting to watch it a second time... what's everyone's thought on the new version of the theme? The intro graphics are pretty cool... just not sure about the music...
Image
User avatar
Rack 'n Ruin
Posts: 1193
Joined: Tue Oct 30, 2007 12:31 pm
Location: Debris, UK

Post by Rack 'n Ruin »

inflatable dalek wrote:That's the Rani who once made a land mine that turned people into trees? That tried to take over the Universe with a massive disembodied brain? That dressed up as Bonnie Langford?
That once trapped the Doctor in a time loop in Albert Square (it's canon, you know it is)?

Rack'N'Ruin, this will help you realise the true power and evil of the Rani:

Good. Grief.

Though Pertwee taking the pee out of Mr. Blobby's less well liked sidekick is certainly amusing... :lol:
Wreck and Rule!
User avatar
Heinrad
Posts: 6281
Joined: Sun Dec 23, 2001 5:00 am
Location: Riskin' it all on my Russian Roulette!

Post by Heinrad »

True, she made a land mine that turned people into trees. And she dressed up as Bonnie Langford. And tried to make a giant brain using the minds of great scientists and thinkers throughout history so she could take over the universe, or at least make it a more sensible place.

All right, fine, she's nuts. But she's a far more focused nuts than the Master. She just wants to create things using highly dubious scientific methods. The Master wants complete mastery over all matter, and will use whatever he's thought of that might work to further his aims(listened to Dust Breeding again a few days ago, a perfectly good example of the Master's reach far exceeding his grasp).

The Rani's a different kind of crazy. Far more stable.
As a professional tanuki (I'm a Japanese mythological animal, and a good luck charm), I have an alarm clock built into me somewhere. I also look like a stuffed animal. And you thought your life was tough......

3DS Friend Code: 1092-1274-7642
User avatar
Tetsuro
Protoform
Posts: 2520
Joined: Mon Jul 24, 2006 1:26 pm
Custom Title: Poe Dameron did nothing wrong
Location: Suomi Finland Perkele

Post by Tetsuro »

Someone once made an interesting observation regarding the Doctor-Master-Rani combination; while the Doctor is motivated by his own good morals, and the Master represent immorality, Rani represents amorality; the complete disregard for ethics or morality, good or wrong; the only thing she's motivated by is her scientific research and she doesn't care whether it results in millions being saved or destroyed as long as it's completed.

With that in mind, I'm sure the Rani would make for an interesting character in the right hands.

Unfortunately, those hands belong to Pip and Jane Baker.
User avatar
Sades
Posts: 9483
Joined: Tue Jan 02, 2001 5:00 am
Location: I APOLOGISE IN ADVANCE

Post by Sades »

I have no idea who Missy is, and I don't care. I will no doubt find out at some point, given who I live with.

I liked it. I like Peter Capaldi better than that caveman dude. I wish I could talk dinosaur.

Poor dino.
This is my signature. My wasted space. My little corner. You can't have it. It's mine. I can write whatever I want. And I have!
User avatar
inflatable dalek
Posts: 24000
Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2004 3:15 pm
Location: Kidderminster UK

Post by inflatable dalek »

Sades wrote:given who I live with.
Steven Moffat?!
REVIISITATION: THE HOLE TRUTH
STARSCREAM GOES TO PIECES IN MY LOOK AT INFILTRATION #6!
PLUS: BUY THE BOOKS!
User avatar
Heinrad
Posts: 6281
Joined: Sun Dec 23, 2001 5:00 am
Location: Riskin' it all on my Russian Roulette!

Post by Heinrad »

Into the Twili.....er, Dalek:

Must.... Fight..... Song.... Urges.....

Golden Earring flashbacks aside, this wasn't bad. We do get a bit more mundane as we see what Clara's doing(although after that flashback last week I would think education would be the last place she'd want to be) while not traveling with the Doctor. The Doctor's reaction to soldiers is something we've seen before.

All in all, enjoyable if not memorable.
As a professional tanuki (I'm a Japanese mythological animal, and a good luck charm), I have an alarm clock built into me somewhere. I also look like a stuffed animal. And you thought your life was tough......

3DS Friend Code: 1092-1274-7642
User avatar
Sades
Posts: 9483
Joined: Tue Jan 02, 2001 5:00 am
Location: I APOLOGISE IN ADVANCE

Post by Sades »

I thought it kinda sucked.

Why didn't they just "un-fix" the thing? All of that messing around in it's "brain" was unnecessary imo. And Clara just happened to figure out what she needed to do and strike at just the right things to trigger the needed images, and The Doctor just happened to know/guess which alien stuff to slice up and stick together...

One big, solid "Meh" from me. :/
This is my signature. My wasted space. My little corner. You can't have it. It's mine. I can write whatever I want. And I have!
User avatar
Skyquake87
Protoform
Posts: 3986
Joined: Sun Jul 04, 2010 9:34 am

Post by Skyquake87 »

I think I'd probably go with Heinrad on the enjoyable, but not especially memorable front.

Started off nicely, I don't know why, but I love it when Doctor Who does show off space battle stuff just because it can these days. It just seems so nice for the show to have a budget that matches its imagination.

We're seriously into diminshing returns with the Daleks at the moment though. Just make them fearsome b*st*rds and have done with it. All this stuff about trying to change them and make them grow as individuals isn't why they're interesting or enjoyable. This whole episode was basically expanding on stuff we'd seen before in 'Dalek', although at least here Rusty didn't blow itself up for having feelings.

Some decent actors wasted in minor roles here, including fella from Game Of Thrones and Tyres from Spaced (as he shall forever be known to me). Didn't particularly warm to bossy soldier girl (was she the lady whom was in The Bill / Bugs...? Or if not...was it her daughter...? She looked very familar). Enjoyed Danny, although he suffers the curse of the novelty name which I can't stand. Danny Pink. Really?

Clara again carried the weight of this episode whilst The Doctor seemed oddly cold and distant throughout. Whilst I'd agree with you Sades that some of leaps in patching the Dalek's memories through were convenient, I am not surprised that the Doctor had a clue about their Physiology - he was there for their birth on Skaro after all...

I really didn't like the 'Am I a good man?' scene. It felt like soemthing really good someone had thought of that they wanted to include, but didn't know where to put it. It felt so random and out of place. It really felt like something that should have come after The Doctor's done something terrible to save everyone, rather than 10 minutes into the episode before anything's happened.

Next week's episode looks fun. I hope it will be.

I'll be hoping we don't see The Daleks again for a good long while (Paradigm now offically retired as a poor marketing choice to sell toys, are they?) as they need a rest and for someone else to like Rob Shearman to come along and do something interesting and/ or decent with them. Just a straight up 'Resurrection Of The Daleks' shooty thing would do. Lets stop deconstructing them with Asylums and touchy feely ones and just get on with telling some good stories with them in!
User avatar
Hound
Posts: 9700
Joined: Tue Sep 26, 2000 4:00 am
Location: Henshin!

Post by Hound »

inflatable dalek wrote:Steven Moffat?!
I ****ing wish...!
User avatar
Sades
Posts: 9483
Joined: Tue Jan 02, 2001 5:00 am
Location: I APOLOGISE IN ADVANCE

Post by Sades »

To clarify, He's apparently picturing him and I still being married, with Moffat living with us like some sort of goofy sitcom roommate or something. I thought he wanted me to go live with Moffat, probably over the toenail clipper incident (which he totally started) :p
Skyquake87 wrote:Whilst I'd agree with you Sades that some of leaps in patching the Dalek's memories through were convenient, I am not surprised that the Doctor had a clue about their Physiology - he was there for their birth on Skaro after all...
I know nothing about this, but even with that... to me, that doesn't mean he's going to know how to slice up their brains. :/
This is my signature. My wasted space. My little corner. You can't have it. It's mine. I can write whatever I want. And I have!
User avatar
Skyquake87
Protoform
Posts: 3986
Joined: Sun Jul 04, 2010 9:34 am

Post by Skyquake87 »

True, but I'd imagine he's had plenty of time to study them over the years...
User avatar
inflatable dalek
Posts: 24000
Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2004 3:15 pm
Location: Kidderminster UK

Post by inflatable dalek »

That was about twenty minutes longer than it would have been if they hadn't locked it up with its gun still attached (at least in the Eccles episode the humans didn't know what any of the attachments did).

Yeah, all very been there and done that before (it's no less than the third "Nice" Dalek story across the various media in less than two years), and 45 minutes just isntenough the do both the psychological Fantastic Voyage and the balls to the wall Dalek battles and do both justice.

It felt very cheap in places as well, with the obvious office corridors doubling for the space station and the Dalek invasion force being all six props (actually using some of the Telletubby Daleks to pad out the numbers might have helped. How odd it will be if The Fiveish Doctors is their last appearance).

Despite that, it was harmless enough and had nice lines here and there and Nick Briggs was on fine throaty form. But it's one where people are going to get very mixed up over thinking parts of it were from other episodes.

I'm also worried about them letting Furman name characters.
REVIISITATION: THE HOLE TRUTH
STARSCREAM GOES TO PIECES IN MY LOOK AT INFILTRATION #6!
PLUS: BUY THE BOOKS!
User avatar
Skyquake87
Protoform
Posts: 3986
Joined: Sun Jul 04, 2010 9:34 am

Post by Skyquake87 »

That cheap feeling is something I've noticed with Who since we got a HD telly. When watching on a slightly older set, you still got that de-laced filmy grain on the new stuff even when it shifted to HD. Watching in HD, not only is it very unforgiving, but it also makes everything look like its filmed on videotape - that flat sort of lifeless sheen, easiest comparison I can make is like in the old days where film was used outside and tape indoors, before OB was used for tape and film phased out. I've noticed this watching a lot of films recently too. Everything just looks a bit chocolate box, and whilst HD works really well for 100% CGI stuff (TF: Prime and Beast Wars/ Machines look incredible in HD) , you can kind of see the joins in everything else and I am not sure how 'awesome' it is to be able to see details in the background like, I dunno, shop signs and that. Maybe if I had a telly that covered an entire wall like folk down the road this would be a thing.
User avatar
Rack 'n Ruin
Posts: 1193
Joined: Tue Oct 30, 2007 12:31 pm
Location: Debris, UK

Post by Rack 'n Ruin »

I wanted to like the latest episode, I really did. But that was a bit pants, really. How many shots did we get of generic human troops fighhting a rearguard action from corridor to room to corridor to room... etc etc? Dull dull dullity dull. And what was the point of the Pete Townshend lookalike? Did nowt. Not even die. Pointless. The bits inside the Dalek looked rather naff too.

However, good bits:

+ "Swallow this!"
+ The Doctor's reaction to the pool of dead things.
+ "...bolt hole..." Ha! The Doctor likes puns. My kinda guy! :)
+ Lily the Pink shedding a tear. Actually like the guy so far, stupid name notwithstanding. Could be interesting when he ends up in the TARDIS and the Doctor finds out he is ex-military.

Anyone reckon we'll see the lead female soldier (Blue) turn up again? Maybe the Doctor will have a change of heart on soldiers? I mean, after his actions in the Time War (and on numerous other occasions) it does come off as rather hypocritical. He's hardly Mother Teresa himself, is he?

Hoping for better next week.
Wreck and Rule!
User avatar
Denyer
Posts: 33033
Joined: Sun Sep 17, 2000 4:00 am
Location: Perfidious Albion
Contact:

Post by Denyer »

Best bit about this one was the obviously low-budget old school bits of Blue Peter craft supplies used for the Dalek's bio circuitry at the end. Generally decent effort.

Have you seen the leaked scripts? I think we've had the best two out of those five, TBH. Next week's lays the meta on thick, there's one in which Moffat goes overboard in referencing canon (wouldn't be out of place in a book anthology) and there's a generic sci-fi entry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_(series_8)

No obvious spoilers from the leaks have crept in there... wonder if with 6 they're being blatant and going back to the 50th special already? "Mummy on the Orient Express" sounds interesting, though.
User avatar
Summerhayes
Posts: 1384
Joined: Mon Dec 01, 2008 9:50 pm
Location: Nagano, Japan

Post by Summerhayes »

Rack 'n Ruin wrote:Anyone reckon we'll see the lead female soldier (Blue) turn up again? Maybe the Doctor will have a change of heart on soldiers? I mean, after his actions in the Time War (and on numerous other occasions) it does come off as rather hypocritical. He's hardly Mother Teresa himself, is he?
I sort of took the implication to be that it's not the shooting and that he hates, it's the following orders. There was a bit in one of the Ecclestone ones where someone says "I was just doing my job" and the doctor replied that with that sentence, they lost the right to talk.
I like bears.
User avatar
angloconvoy
Posts: 2793
Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2000 4:00 am
Location: Ichihara, Japan

Post by angloconvoy »

Tetsuro wrote:I feel kind of bad for taking this long to realize this.

But when Vastra accuses Clara of having hung out with the Doctor all this time only because he was attractive, she wasn't saying that just to her - she was saying that to the audience as well.
Really? Because I found it the most heavy handed, beating-you-over-the-head-with-a-mallet excuse for a metaphor I've ever seen outside of the first season of Angel. The constant cracks about his lines and eyebrows and wrinkles and how he's Scottish (complete with a godawful joke about the upcoming independence vote). I spent most of the episode thinking, "Yes, we get it. The Doctor is an old bloke whose face probably wouldn't shift as many issues of Heat now." It was like the whole episode was a passive agressive excuse/defense for their choice of actor and nothing more. I'm not sure how he'll pan out as the Doctor all round, but that first episode was shockingly bad.
Image
User avatar
inflatable dalek
Posts: 24000
Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2004 3:15 pm
Location: Kidderminster UK

Post by inflatable dalek »

Whilst I can see why him going on about his age- though it seems to be confined to the first one- is annoying many people, I think it's worth remembering that he's not just the oldest (discounting John Hurt for a second...) new series Doctor, he's the oldest actor ever to début as the Doctor (continuing to discount John Hurt for a second. Possibly Cushing as well?). It's easy to see why there'd be a worry about how well this would go over and why the PTB thought it should be addressed head on, especially as Hartnell was only a year younger in '63 and the job basically killed him.
REVIISITATION: THE HOLE TRUTH
STARSCREAM GOES TO PIECES IN MY LOOK AT INFILTRATION #6!
PLUS: BUY THE BOOKS!
User avatar
Denyer
Posts: 33033
Joined: Sun Sep 17, 2000 4:00 am
Location: Perfidious Albion
Contact:

Post by Denyer »

Am assuming that these days the Beeb have some sort of health checks for actors cast in physically demanding roles...
Post Reply