OH MY GOD HE'S OOGLY: nu-Who season 8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45d8kn5hApg

lol perfect title.

lool DJP

A+ thread title.

*bows* you are all too kind

I would have opened with the teaser trailer but it doesn't actually contain any information:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYN6ruU672Y

Moffat interview from Hay Book Festival contains some interesting, if vague, tidbits, about S8. Also sounds like Gatiss's involvement has been stepped up. Is he being groomed as the next showrunner when Moffat likely steps down after S9?

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/may/27/steven-moffat-bbc-david-tennant-benedict-cumberbatch-sexy

Although Tennant and Cumberbatch's features are each chiselled in a somewhat idiosyncratic way, each has become a heart-throb, with Cumberbatch even prompting an online army of Cumberbitches, in thrall to his every movement

gg internet

Also sounds like Gatiss's involvement has been stepped up. Is he being groomed as the next showrunner when Moffat likely steps down after S9?

Can't think of any other likely candidate TBH.

: |

Ah could worse; he's not proven himself the best Who writer, but he's obviously deeply invested in the programme, and could see him taking it in more of a horror anthology direction which could be cool.

Nightshade was a lot of fun; I hope Gatiss can adapt it into an episode (it would totally fit into the horror anthology vibe, basically Doctor Who meets The Blob)

Gatiss knows the show inside out and that's why his DW novels (and the Crimson Horror) were good fun - he's good at pastiche and fan servicing. But, yeah, not a brilliant episode writer. However, he could be a good show runner, particularly if he brings other writers on board.
Of course, I could be reading too much into this. His role as Moffat's confidante probably isn't new. That said, he is clearly in a special showrunner circle of trust.

The Unquiet Dead remains his best episode I think.

yeah, burn all immigrants

gg internet

to his credit, Cumberbatch is trying to suggest that they call themselves something less troublesome

Gatiss knows the show inside out

If he knows it inside out, it's not shown in his writing, which appears to value only a handful of aspects of the show (ie nostalgiohorror, which is why Nightshade and Crimson Horror work; these aspects are also p good in Cold War, but the writing is otherwise thuddingly dumb in that). He's presumably aware of these tendencies, but one fears he couldn't counteract or broaden them in a showrunning role. Note also the structure of AAISAT being hung on luvvie nostalgia, with eg Delia being reduced to a one-second cameo praising a man, and Whitaker excised altogether.

That said, there's literally not a word about Gatiss or his involvement with the show in that piece, so I don't know where you're getting it from.

Ah right, I was conflating that with another piece featuring extracts from the Hay interview where he talks about discussing plans with Gatiss and RTD. I also read something where Gatiss talked about 'casting' Frank Skinner, even though he's not in a Gatiss episode, which suggests he's got a fair degree of influence. Of course, 'casting' could just mean putting in a good word. Skinner was probably pestering everyone involved for a part.

Gatiss and Moffatt have been friends through regular Who fandom since the '90s, they've probably talked about it more than once. And in DOTD promotional interviews, Moffatt was saying RTD asks him not to discuss plans, because he wants to enjoy the show with no foreknowledge.

And googling on Gatiss / Skinner, I get an Independent Woman Ireland article where the lede says "Mark Gatiss has said he was happy to give Frank Skinner a role in Doctor Who because he is the show's number one fan," which is so poorly written that you can't tell which of the men is the number one fan, and then the actual quotes from Gatiss say nothing about him being involved in casting Skinner, and indeed describe himself as a third-party observer.

Fair enough. But given some of the stuff that's been doing the round it's understandable why some might suspect Gattis is being groomed as the next show runner. Of course, the elephant in the room is the fact he's said he doesn't want it, and certainly it would get in the way of his acting and other writing.
There's no other obvious candidate just now, but given that Moffat is surely staying around for S9 I suppose there's no great rush.

get Lawrence Miles to do it (as long as he leans on OG Faction Paradox and stays away from Sabbath)

I don't understand any of that sentence.

^^^ clearly you haven't read any of the BBC 8th Doctor adventures

I'm referencing the following:

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Alien_Bodies_%28novel%29
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Interference_-_Book_One_%28novel%29
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Interference_-_Book_Two_%28novel%29
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Adventuress_of_Henrietta_Street

i hope gareth roberts comes back to write some more. I love his episodes and finally read his novelization of Shada which was excellent.

Roberts is writing one for S8, and also novelising City Of Death.

(The audiobook of Shada is read by Lalla Ward, so includes her Tom impersonation, and also features John Leeson doing all of K-9's dialogue.)

yeah Roberts rules too; his Virgin and BBC books were tons of fun

excellent, I am going to buy Shada and read it at lunch!

fave BBC/Virgin authors

Lawrence Miles
Gareth Roberts
Dave Stone
Jonothan Morris
Ben Aaronovitch

early Kate Orman, Lance Parkin and Paul Cornell were also great but I feel like all three fell victim to their good press, to varying degrees

excellent, I am going to buy Shada and read it at lunch!

Roberts' original novels set in the same production era are even better than Shada, if you want more afterwards.

I knew I'd forget an author: Peter Anghelides

Never read his novels, but Gareth Roberts' episodes are all pretty mediocre. Too much CBBC slapstick and soppiness.

So English Way of Death, Romance of Crime, and the Well-Mannered War are pretty solid if I like Shada?

really looking forward to his City of Death novelization. Hopefully they'll let him do the Pirate Planet after that. he doesn't ape Adams but he works with that dialogue extremely well.

Well-Mannered War is free and legal here btw

I see they're going to do the Big Finish treatment on a couple of them, so I'll probably wait for those and read the other one! Thanks!

As far as I'm aware the only decent Smith-era stories were by Moffatt, most of the others were kind of unexceptional and dull? Moffatt obviously responsible for some overplotted clangers as well but at least they were memorable. There aren't any prospective showrunners who are already involved the show who would be any good, certainly not Gatiss.

The Lodger is my favourite episode of Doctor Who ever, probably. The Doctor's Wife is great. Amy's Choice, Vincent And, Girl Who Waited and Hide are all highpoints of their respective series.

(Not an argument for any of those writers as showrunner, btw, and most of them obviously wouldn't do it. Whithouse does appear to have a breadth of story interests that would make him a tenable case, though. [Personally would rather be surprised by an unknown who turns out to be a wonky font of creativity, like Adams or Cartmel or, let's face it, Whitaker. (also cf Smith!)])

Whithouse is the other obvious, if slightly unexciting, candidate, seeing as he's had showrunning experience. Only really good ep he's done IMO is The God Complex, which also owes a lot of its grim power to Nick Hurran's excellent direction. Actually, School Reunion is good too, although the most affecting stuff, i.e. Sarah Jane's return, was probably RTD's doing. Vampires of Venice is a decent romp. Town Called Mercy could have been really interesting, but ended up kinda dull - direction partly to blame. The pacing was zzz.

Not a show runner candidate, but it's a shame Jack Thorpe of The Fades fame, has been poached by Hollywood to do the Sandman movie. I'd like to have seen him do a Dr Who episode. Rumour has it he was approached, but things didn't work out. Maybe he can be brought back in at some point.

Not sure about the new changes to the TARDIS.

okay this is going to sound insane and I didn't feel this way until looking at that picture but I was suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling that, for the first time since the reboot, I'm looking at REAL Doctor Who

I mean, I liked/loved nu-Who up to this point with some notable exceptions (hey there large chunks of season 2) but this is suddenly making me feel like what I've watched up to this point has been well-done fan-fiction

aw, I was hoping they made the TARDIS interior less stupid.

so excited for this weeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Yeah I don't want to set myself up for a disappointment but I have great faith in capaldi and everything I've heard about the new direction sounds spot on.

Is it just me or does that sonic screwdriver look more like a dildo microphone than any previous sonic screwdriver?

I uh dunno what a dildo microphone looks like.

that's the same one matt smith had.

capaldi could carry a pineapple and a tiny parasol & I'd say it was the best direction ever

You just want him to be Manila Luzon.

<iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/98521218" width="500" height="281" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>

DELETE DELETE DELETE

very carefully excited

New teaser!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HaiGKiUuik

:D

I want that coat.

New teaser reveals a returning villain, won't say who for the spoiler sensitive amongst you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbX4tNG_k3s

Assuming it actually is who it sounds like.

Much speculation as to whether it is who everyone thinks it is... not the same actor as before... and the voice changes too... maybe two voices? or a new character? What mystery: the teaser has done its job well.

Very excited for new series. Capaldi sounds quite Baker-ish in the previous teaser. The way he attacks 'be my PAL' with the punchy plosives and elongated vowels. And yes, it seems some alterations to the Tardis interior have been made. Still the same console, but I think there'll be a few tweaks, different lighting etc.

Frank Cotrell Boyce's just announced episode 10 has 'a cast of child actors'. Do they mean exclusively? Some kind of bizarro episode where the Doctor and Clara et al are turned into kids? This could be horribly gimmicky, but I've liked other stuff FCB has done, so will reserve judgement. And once in a while these high concept episodes work - Buffy's Once More With Feeling etc.

Much speculation as to whether it is who everyone thinks it is... not the same actor as before... and the voice changes too... maybe two voices? or a new character? What mystery: the teaser has done its job well.

I'm going with Occam's Razor on this one.

it's pretty obvious who it is

What's this rumour I may have heard about leaked scripts? Real or hoax? Pretty big deal if real, I'd think.

It was being reported with a straight face on a couple of basically reputable sites this afternoon.

"10:00:00 EXT. SKY - DAY
A beautiful blue sky - no clue where this is.
A huge, thunderous impact, earth-shaking - and now, swaying into view the head of a T..."

Hmmm.

Nevermind. I'm vv tempted to read on but I'll wait.

any word on the London World Tour event (day, what will they do)? I'll be in London then.

also I am not above reading leaked scripts, but can't find them.

THE HEAD OF A WHAT? I can't think of any Who races beginning with a T!

...ARDIS?

Wait, was there some kind of lumpy-headed thing called a Tyranoid? Or did I make that up?

No, I'm thinking of the Draconians.

"10:00:00 EXT. SKY - DAY
A beautiful blue sky - no clue where this is.
A huge, thunderous impact, earth-shaking - and now, swaying into view the head of a T..."

T-Rex? Dinosaur extinction meteorite day?

I mean, fuck knows if this even is a leaked script or whatever, just joining in with the wild conjecture.

PS guess what the top Google hit is for

"doctor who" oogly

Transylvanian? Terry Wogan lookalike?

That was an xpost

I'm not telling - but someone guessed correctly.

Transylvanian? Terry Wogan lookalike?

I'm sure the internet has some Rocky Horror/Who mashup fan fiction, but Eurovision too? It's possible...

Doctor Who's bloomers

http://youtu.be/TivqZTq5u6Y

Oooooh. And I was right.

I've still not seen Lair of the White Worm, but I was looking at some pics from it and OH MY GOD HE'S NOT OOGLY:

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvd6tjb7kt1qmlph5.jpg

this is also the most excited I've been about Clara since she was a Dalek

emil.y, you should also make time for Dangerous Liaisons:

http://www.hotflick.net/flicks/1988_Dangerous_Liaisons/988DLS_Peter_Capaldi_005.jpg

2013 World War Z WHO doctor

lol

World War Z
W.H.O. Doctor

― Number None, Monday, August 5, 2013 5:24 AM (11 months ago)

whoops didn't see a post in some other thread. my miss.

can't believe that a joke hundreds of ppl made on the internet the week Capaldi's casting was announced would have been on the thread about Capaldi's casting being announced

John FROBISHER lol!

xp: can't believe this is not that thread

torn between apologising for being a dick and demanding that hl address my amazing Frobisher zing :-/

I'll admit that I am new to Doctor Who both irl and on ilx and I am way out of my depth with your Frobisher zing.

all is blamelessly forgiven as long as you stfu and gtfo forever, n00b

aw, fandom

oh man, i just found out about an event that i will be definitely going to that is whorelated and tho' i am embargoed i am pretty hype

What does -lated mean?

I was going to make that joke but didn't.

i guess that's where "whovian" came from

Good news:

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/jul/27/peter-capaldi-doctor-who-no-flirting-sidekick-coleman-new-series

Who'd want to flirt with oogly face anyway.

me :)

I was glad to hear Vastra, Jenny & Strax will appear again in the first season 8 ep, IMO been they've the best thing about the last couple of seasons. Isn't it time to give them their own spinoff already? (Or maybe they only work as supporting characters?)

Tuomas you should watch 1974 4-parter The Time Warrior, once you've watched the first episode.

"Ah, I understand. You have a primary and secondary reproductive cycle. It is an inefficient system, you should change it."

Tuomas you should watch 1974 4-parter The Time Warrior, once you've watched the first episode.

Is it related to the first ep? I don't where I could watch those old episodes, are they available online?

No, the first episode was made 10 years, 2 Doctors, about 20 companions and half a dozen production teams earlier. This one has the first Sontaran appearance and some amusing attempts at addressing gender politics, though.

The BBC used to rotate 10 or so full old stories on youtube, but don't seem to any more. Almost everything is illegally online on youtube or Dailymotion or Vimeo, in varying quality. And you can rent DVDs of all intact serials.

https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!msg/rec.arts.drwho/fNc0-Zpirpg/-T0hm17wRcgJ

good find!

https://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.drwho/browse_thread/thread/7cd734f99a62ae98/c845f05e9b213df9

I guess he's been waiting to use this idea for a while.

― Melissa W, Sunday, June 5, 2011 6:47 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rvpElcXUi8

man Capaldi is gonna fucking rule

i'm kinda hyped.
my shhh shhh secret fell through unfortunately; thought i was gonna get to go to an early screening of the first episode. no such luck.

There are going to be Daleks OMG SPOILERZZzzzz...

thinking about going to see the premiere episode in the theater, would probably be fun.

Some of the fans might be a bit annoying.

You should have seen what it was like standing in a room full of Doctor Who fans in 1992. I think it'll be OK.

0 people were annoying at the 50th in the cinema (though two couples I know insisted on watching in their respective hotel rooms based on that expectation)

my shhh shhh secret fell through unfortunately; thought i was gonna get to go to an early screening of the first episode. no such luck.

Not so secret, you could have just bought a ticket! Sydney's is tonight, but at $100 they can fuck off.

Capaldi & Coleman were at work this morning; a desk neighbour snapped him coming through the lobby, and another friend got a couple of shots of herself with him - apparently nobody bothered Coleman at all.

aw that's sad

also the number of squeeing 20- to 40-somethings in the theater for the 50th who threatened to drown out the dialogue whenever Tennant spoke made me want to become suddenly, massively violent

it's not even really that I dislike Tennant's portrayal of the Doctor (he does hold the distinction of having the worst season of nu-Who under his belt, tho) but the hairy-palmed cult of adoration he inspired makes me want to watch nothing but McCoy stories

I assume Capaldi's portrayal will reduce the squeeing a bit, but really I don't mind. That would be part of the spectacle. If they could squee through the tedious story arc exposition, that would be perfect. I only want to hear the banter.

When Tennant gave his "I don't want to go" line before hopping back into his TARDIS, there was a loud "oHhhhhhh" that reverberated through the theater followed by the unmistakable smell of orgasmic release

Maybe I will bring my rain jacket.

also lots of sanitizer

aw that's sad

nah it's great! Ppl love Capaldi and are excited for him and can't resist letting him know; Coleman just got treated like anyone else in to do interviews.

it isn't Coleman's fault that non-Dalek Clara and Smith had the charisma of a damp fart; I really think her character is going to take off now that it's playing against an older-appearing, more irritable Doctor

eg I once heroically refrained from punching the prime minister in the face, when we were in the same lift

also :( that your cushion-wetting audiencemates presumably missed the next line taking the piss out of Tennant's final one

also she is adorable and I want to put her in my pocket it's going to be interesting to see how Clara's more pragmatic, semi-terrified reactions to the dangers of traveling with the Doctor will play against a Doctor much less likely to be indulgent or comforting

There was no room for charisma between 11 and Clara, as in all but two of their eps he was written to assholically ignore who she actually was as a person, getting caught up in his Impossible Girl quest instead. Forest for the trees.

xpost yes

I guess hoping for a Seventh Doctor/Ace dynamic would be too much.

I just rewatched Curse of Fenric this weekend and Ace comes across so much better than I remembered her; it's really too bad that half of the story is deus ex machina nonsense

Not so secret, you could have just bought a ticket! Sydney's is tonight, but at $100 they can fuck off.

Ace was one of the best companions, really.

I like Clara, I think she has potential. But I imagine she'll be gone at the end of this season. I preferred Amy and Donna both because they had more personality but I think Clara, with Capaldi, has the potential to be a kind of SJS Nancy Drew sort.

Also i missed Capaldi and Coleman and Daleks and whatnot in London last week because I was getting off a late plane from Barcelona, much to my dismay

so is anybody doing the early bird thing?

apparently the new title sequence looks a lot like this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXOBHnWiinY

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/aug/15/doctor-who-title-sequence-fan-video-steven-moffat?CMP=fb_gu

That's pretty cool.

Sad that we still have to deal with Murray Gould's maudlin orchestrations, though. Couldn't they get Mike Paradinas or Riz Maslen or someone to do a proper elecronic score instead of this guy's second rate John Williams stuff?

tuomas otm

Yeah, return to the weird disconcerting synth wobbles of the 70s please.

As I have been informed by Radio4Extra the radiophonic workshop exists again, albeit as more of a museum inside the maida vale studios. There was a documentary the other week in which Cerys Matthews had exactly the right response for someone being let through the door; 'Can I play?'. Better wibbling in 5 minutes of a radio documentary than Murray Gold could manage in a lifetime.

speaking of the 70s it has previously escaped my notice that Peter Capaldi was in a punk band with Craig Ferguson called 'Dreamboys'

http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/files/2013/08/Dreamboys-1.jpg

Is the RWS "museum" just the results of Ayres' job in the '90s?

He has a supergroup of Radiophonic members that tour live, including Mills & Kingsland, btw.

Looks like the Manic Street Preachers singer guy was in Dreamboys too? (In the far right.)

http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/files/2013/08/Dreamboys-1.jpg

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/59260000/jpg/_59260725_jdb_rw_446.jpg

L-R: Peter Capaldi, Temple Clark, Craig Ferguson, Roderick Murray

Wow, I'm glad this didn't happen:

During the shooting of The Fires Of Pompeii, Russell T. Davies began preparing ideas for the 2008 Christmas Special, with the two foremost ideas being what would eventually become The Next Doctor, and an episode where the Time Beetle from Turn Left latches on to J.K. Rowling and converts her imagination to reality.

The main plot of the episode would have been the Doctor having to battle his way through a fantasy world of Victorian magic brought to life so that he could get to Rowling and remove the Beetle from her. This idea was later dropped because of concerns over whether or not Rowling could act and would agree to appear, and because of David Tennant’s concerns that it sounded more like a Doctor Who spoof than a real episode.

From here: http://whatculture.com/tv/25-facts-you-didnt-know-about-doctor-who.php/10

so did they actually hire / pay for a title sequence done by a fan artist for this series? that is awesome

I can't tell if that title sequence is a new take on the tune or not, if not it's a much better one than some of of the nuWho ones. A lot of which have dispensed with the proper baseline tape loop

http://www.youtube.com/watch?fv=XZ1kRxgKft4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ1kRxgKft4

there's probably a poll in that, but I quite like some of the late 80s one where they get some great sparkly FM synth noises in it.

read some more and yeah, moffat liked that guy's work when he saw it on youtube and hired him to work on the actual intro, which by all accounts is very close to the one posted above. cool!

Peter Capaldi was in a punk band with Craig Ferguson called 'Dreamboys'

Saw a Capaldi interview last night; he said the band was originally called 'Bastards from Hell'

Surprised that nobody saw the leaked episodes, or were they just avoiding spoilers?
Looking forward to seeing the completed episodes in full colour, overdubs & sfx complete anyway.
Still really hoping that Clara either improves or leaves. Or that Capaldi gets a new companion.

I think we've discussed this before, but I don't I don't think there's anything wrong with Clara as a character in theory, and the actress is pretty good too, the problem is that so far the writers haven't treated her as anything else but a MacGuffin. Previous companions were allowed to have subplots and a life of their own, but there's been nothing like that with Clara so far, she's been completely defined by her relationship to the Doctor, by the whole "Impossible Girl" plotline. So hopefully now that that plot is resolved, she'll be given more things to do as an individual character.

I think they have been making an effort to fill out Clara's character and life since DOTD. From the episode blurbs it sounds like she'll be given a lot more to do in terms of interacting with the Doctor and other people. I don't think they'll go down the RTD route with soapy Tyler subplots, but we'll see her on dates, at work etc. Of course, it all depends on how well written it is, but at least Moffat and co seem to recognise the problems with her to date.

The point of the Impossible Girl plotline is that the Doctor was being a self-involved dickbag to treat her like that. The actual stories showed us a character with a life, a personality, a propensity for problem-solving, a broad compassion, a tendency to put others ahead of herself, a bravado that covered self-doubt and fear, unfulfilled aspirations, reasons for holding herself back, strong enough self-regard to deny the Doctor his selfish desire to disrupt her life for his own ends. Treating her like a puzzle to be solved is actually pointed out to be an offensive and cunty thing to do. The Doctor's viewpoint is a narrative feint, denied by the actual text in episode after episode.

(eg: Clara finding the little girl in Akhaten, worrying about her, finding out what's wrong, and eventually resolving the threat through compassion - the reverse of the Doctor's behaviour; the psychic in Hide telling the Doctor outright to consider Clara as a person, not as a puzzle.)

a propensity for problem-solving, a broad compassion, a tendency to put others ahead of herself, a bravado that covered self-doubt and fear, unfulfilled aspirations, reasons for holding herself back

Most of these are kind of generic plucky (girl-)sidekick characteristics, though?

a) if true, still puts lie to claims of no character just mystery, b) not nec among Who sidekicks c) yr qualifying anyway. And eg the way Rory, professional nurse, caring abt others plays into stories is v different from how Clara, directionless-nanny-who-becomes-a-teacher, does.

I agree with Lee, nothing we've seen about Clara so far has made her different from the generic sidekick. And I wasn't saying that Clara doesn't have any character, just that her character is almost totally defined by her relationship to the Doctor. With Rose and Donna particularly, it felt like also existed as interesting characters outside their companion role, but I haven't felt that with Clara yet, she hasn't really done anything to step outside that template. I think Martha had the same problem, she never really felt unique in any way. I said previously that it isn't about the actor, but maybe it is? Billie Piper and Catherine Tate certainly were better at conveying their characters' idiosyncrasies than Freema Agyeman was, or Jenna Coleman has been so far.

Intriguing new take on the Doctor, pretty rote plot. Clara suddenly got really good!

Tonally all over the place, but the moments with just the Doctor and Clara were good, ie the restaurant scene.

It certainly was nowhere near the triumph of The 11th Hour, and I didn't take to 12 straight away. But maybe it's fine to have a more downbeat opener for a more downbeat Doctor?

Thought there was probably too much comedy in it, though I laughed at it all. Loved it when the Doctor left Clara behind and didn't open the door, and it was great to hear Vastra echoing the Brigadier. Knew Moffatt was heading for one of his own stories in referencing Girl In The Fireplace but he didn't half make it clear that it rips off the Cybermen something chronic.

Not sure having Michelle Gomez in this episode, so presumably in all of them, is going to work.

I seem to have had the opposite opinion to everyone else with the titles, liked the arrangement and hated the visuals.

I mostly enjoyed it. Much laughter at the eyebrows and the restaurant scenes but I agree it got too close to being a comedy show.
Hope they don't stick with the "lol u old" thing for long as it'll get old quickly.

the grey hair crap became tiresome quickly.

oh, and hang on, i know i had a few glasses of wine, but did i miss what happened to the dino stomping all over london ?

Was spontaneously combusted by robots for slightly unclear plot reasons.

Anyway, once the forced wackiness died down, Capaldi was very good, and the writing for Clara was a lot stronger. I appreciated the lack of manic pacing, but Ben Wheatley is crap at directing action.

Just when you thought there wasn't going to be any more sexing up - that 'lizbian' mouth-to-mouth.

The Easter egg at the end is lovely.

unclear? robot fella was harvesting 5 inches of the dinosaur's optic nerve to repair himself and presumably his unbreathing army, a fact both he the doctor repeated a few times just in case we didn't get it

i'm looking forward to next week's as the first one that won't need a lot of expository regeneration gab. by the way, i did not think the robots were scary. they looked as though you could knock them over with a light push. and somehow the fight with them was both laborious and too easy for our heroes. lotta fighting, no danger in it. clara's no donna but i like her. and capaldi was tremendous, the script lets him indulge a few malcolmisms and i'm glad he doesn't shy away from it. tremendous vision of birth and growth and aging, all in one episode. from a gibbering infant who doesn't know what bedrooms are, to the mirror stage (!) to someone who orders food in restaurants, and finally as someone who can repress desire.

I'm all for more Vastra and Jenny kissing. Also Jenny with her hair down. Also more Jenny in general.

I really liked this. Wasn't as great as the 11th Hour but it was awfully good.

as a first time in over three years watcher (i skipped the last doctor) this was thoroughly doofy and a little tired. i'll keep trying for capaldi.

I also liked that he openly acknowledged that his face came from somewhere else (Pompeii) with a hint that he chose it to learn something from it.

i enjoyed this by and large. capaldi is excellent, really excellent in it. I'm easily affected by such things, soppy you might say in fact, but I thought the initial portrayal of him as one who has lost his mind, his quick descent into vagrancy was quite touching. (Anyone who's had to deal with an elderly relative continually going wandering in the most new and inventive ways will appreciate his sudden moments of baffled clarity 'what am i doing/why am i here' and apparently purposeless aims.)

This made the scene in the restaurant particularly good i thought, sitting there, finally sober in his filthy clothes. His baleful face helps deliver trite comedy well 'There's a smell', 'I know, it's everywhere', and there's a quick contempt to his innocence which plays very well.

I quite liked the melancholy ancient clockwork robots. There was a touch of the Tales from Hoffman about them (The Sandman?), but yes, the fight was an embarrassment. In fact the whole deep breath thing didn't really work. Where Moffat has been good in the past, and what he did so well in Blink and the first Matt Smith episode (the corner of the eye one), and sort of well with the Silence, was take childhood fears, irrational challenges to yourself, and the general mentality that hasn't quite learned that the world simply doesn't behave like that, and translate them into a fantastically realised reality (to take it in Piaget terms it's a sort of concrete operations stage harking back to a pre-operations stage).

Here he took the idea of holding one's breath for a long time, and didn't really make it work - well, the bit where Clara initially fainted worked reasonably well i thought, but the bit in the fight where they all held their breath for a bit was CRAP.

I thought the whole 'lol u old' stuff was probably seen as necessary. Moffat feeling need to use Clara here as even more than usual a quite blatant proxy for us the viewer who've been conditioned to doctor-as-hectic-young-model. I don't know whether Moffat was right to fear this. I guess it might be considered quite alienating to have again a Doctor that looks like a f'ing teacher (albeit a great teacher). The whole episode obviously had a lot of articulate and various arguments faces, inner and outer, veils, clothes and beings reconstructing themselves, and I thought the doctor stuff was well handled, or at least not mawkish, apart from maybe getting old management back in to tell people to get behind the new guy.

great post.

the simplicity of the scene when capaldi gives his "you don't even see me" speech to clara was grebt and v moving i thought.

I found the holding breath thing pretty stupid. For one thing, I found it hard to believe that you can hold your breath up to the point you faint. But I don't know, maybe you can. Or maybe I should have suspended disbelief anyway. But it just felt wrong to me, and not even that tense.

Also, telling the viewer that Clara was supposed to have been an egomaniac control freak doesn't really make up for never having shown this previously. And lines like "who knows him best in the world" strike me as funny when it's like... Rose? River? One of the older companions? The Master? Probably not Clara, tbh.

Fanservice was fairly extreme but a lot of it worked - was not a fan of the big snog for the sake of gratifying the titillation-desiring male fans, but if it marks a move back towards the "gay agenda" years I will be satisfied.

I think I liked pretty much everything else? I'm a fan of the Vastra/Jenny/Strax characters, though, and I'm fairly sure some people on this thread hate them so wouldn't really have enjoyed a large swathe of this. Capaldi is definitely looking like he'll be a great doctor, Clara seemed more on form and alive than usual, the restaurant scene was good, the possible murder was good. Oh, the CGI dinosaur was a bit rubbish.

Also, my first thought about the end was that heaven looked like the place in 'the Girl Who Waited', but that totally isn't it, at all, right?

watched again due to the wine excess last night.
other than the holding breathe thing, i really enjoyed it.
looking forward to seeing more.

Probably not Clara, tbh.

She's the only companion to have visited and helped every one of his regenerations, so I'd be fine with her being the one who knows him best if only she appeared to actually remember any of that. But instead Moffat has her be confused by his face ageing, it's just shoddy character building.

Yeah, I think if you're going to have her respond like that, then you have to assume that she's somehow *not* a Clara who remembers being iterated throughout the Doctor's timeline, right? But then, I can't even remember how Jenny isn't dead, so maybe I'm the worst at this canon-analysis thing.

Where do vastra & jenny first appear. I remember seeing them when Amy's baby's been taken during the Matt Smith era but can't really remember them before that. Were they set up previously?

& when did the Scottish actress become the personification of the Tardis? That wasn't her in the earlier episode when they were knocked out of normal space/time and thereby had the TARDIS become a female was it? She looks more like the woman who kidnapped the Amy baby, though that wasn't her eitherr. Think i should know who that actress is since she was in Green Wing and a few other things.

Just looking for answers to that Vastra thing and found this
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2579624/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_6

which I haven't heard of before. Sounds like sometyhing I would n't mind seeing if it's played right. Presumably it's her playing a female Sherlock Holmes/Raffles/whatever

& if I looked further into it I might have seen that it was a 3 minute short. Just wondered why I hadn't seen it.
Wouldn't mind a longer sideshoot program like the one I assumed it was though.

It's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rirju6is4Sw

Right, explains a lot. Several things i would't have thought she'd want other people in her society to know though.
Still, would love a longer thing based on that idea of her as independent correspondent to Scotland Yard or whatever.

& when did Jenny die? Is that during the Name of the Doctor sequence? Was that rendered out of the time/space continuum by events that transpired?

So who was that woman in 'paradise' at the end?

I thought she was the personification of the Tardis which first appeared played by a different actress in The Doctor's Wife. She refers to him as her boyfriend at one point.

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014-08-23/doctor-who-who-is-missy

Mostly speculation in there, but a couple of minor spoilers also, for those who are picky about such things.

Though I actually think Stevolende's theory makes more sense. But I'm not sure how the robot/robot consciousness goes from London to a Tardis-controlled simulation.

Vastra/jenny/Strax are great but they were not introduced well into the series; that episode (whatever it was...a good man goes to war?) where they get people formerly impacted by the doctor to come and help him out was problematic in that none of those people had ever been shown before and it didn't make any sense at all at the time. I still feel like the real introduction never happened.

it was during the era where they just crammed 1000 things into every episode and stuff was continually confusing to me

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bv0HN0FCIAEtjJ9.jpg

i thought the "lol u old" bit was in many ways a message to the nextgen who fan as personified by the "HE'S OOGLY!" girl who were all hung up on the optics and Moffat's not-so-gently pointing out we're here for the DOCTOR guys

Well yes. And it was delivered with the subtlety of a live Skrillex show when standing about six centimeters away from the speakers.

I wonder if that Vastra investigates was thought to be the introduction to the character that had been missed. It looks like the same actress plays her and the amenable member of her species that turned up in the Welsh episode. Which again might be why they didn't think she needed any further introductin though why not escapes me.
HOw mush red tape/depts do any story ideas have to go through before they get greenlighted, just wondering if anything is getting lost in taht way. If introductory elements are sheared off in streamlining in group scriptwriting meetings or something.

xp hence "not-so-gently"

I liked this episode, I thought it did a decent job of introducing the new Doctor's quirks and exploring how the regeneration might feel for a companion. IIRC, in the Nu-Who era Rose is the only companion who has gone through this before, so it didn't feel overplayed or anything. (Agree that the "lol he's old" jokes were a bit tired.) I loved that this episode finally gave Clara some room to develop, though admittedly the "control freak" and "egomaniac" descriptions of her felt wrong, seems they just put there for that one the gag.

The villain part of plot was kinda meh, but since the episode was more about the new Doctor, I didn't mind it having a bit of an excuse plot. I didn't think it had too much humour, though I did like the tearjerker moments more than the gags: the Vastra/Jenny kiss (IMO it wasn't there for titillation or anything, I simply felt it was about time, since they haven't actually shown these two kissing before, even though the doctor now seems to snog everyone he meets, so not having them kiss would've reeked of gay panic), and especially the "the Doctor will always have my back" scene, which was so simple and touching, a brilliant way of refining cliche into gold.

Here's a few geeky questions and speculations that came to my mind, maybe some of you can comment on them?

* What was up with the dinosaur's size? It seems they made it way bigger than it should've been just so that they would get that cool opening scene... But previously, when Dr. Who has twisted historical facts, they've at least tried to give it some justification, and here there was none.

* So the robots were the same kind as those aboard the spaceship in "The Girl in the Fireplace"? It's been ages since I saw that episode, so correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the robots in it go crazy and start replacing the spaceship parts with human parts only because they were stranded in space, and had nothing else to use? But the robots here would have had all the inorganic raw materials they need, yet harvesting organs now seems to be their default mode? Does not compute.

* What was the point of making it so ambiguous whether the robot guy committed suicide, or whether the Doctor killed him? He's not Superman or anything, previously we've seen that he is perfectly willing to kill loads of people in order to protect the innocents, so what's with the ambiguity now?

* The woman at the end... My first thought too was that it was the human incarnation of the TARDIS, but then I thought she felt too nefarious and crazy and possessive of the Doctor to be the TARDIS. I'm thinking it must be River Song, right? The last time they met (chronologically) he left her living inside that computer simulation, and maybe spending an eternity there has made her a bit crazy? Also, the robot guy dies and goes into "afterlife", and what could be a better afterlife for a robot than a computer-simulated paradise? That garden could easily be inside the simulation, maybe River even learned how to control the computer? (That would also explain how she's able to manipulate the Doctor's life while still remaining a virtual being.) The only thing that doesn't fit into this theory is the woman calling the Doctor her "boyfriend", not "husband", but maybe the writers thought using the latter word would've it too obvious who she is.

There are some things in episode 2 that might go against your last point, but I'll not say anything more. & will be looking forward to seeing that in better version.
Not seen any of the others yet

The thing about Clara as a control freak is that as far as I know, she is the first companion to tell the Doctor directly from the jump "I have a life, this is how you fit into it, see you next week", so it's not like it came completely from nowhere.

also, aside from the totally nothing plot I thought this ruled

Capaldi rules

I was curious about this episode's mention that some woman (apparently it was "Missy", the mystery woman at the end of the ep) deliberately gave Clara the Doctor's number when she phoned him in "The Bells of St. John", thinking it was the tech helpline. I thought this was just a bit of a retcon... But I rewatched the earlier episode, and when the Doctor asks where Clara got his number, she does say, "The woman in the shop wrote it down... She said it's the best helpline out there, in the universe". So apparently they really were setting up this plotline back then already, I'd just totally missed that bit, I thought Clara managed to ring the Doctor by accident, because the universe wanted them to meet or something.

But that made me think, maybe this Missy character isn't actually a villain, even though she has the aura of one? Because she caused Clara and the Doctor to meet, and if they hadn't, he would've died at Trenzalore, and Missy probably knew that. (This of course would support the theory that Missy is TARDIS.)

seems unlikely to me that she's the Tardis, they already did that with Idris in the Gaiman episode and what would the point be in recasting the character or changing it in such a way? If anything holds weight it's Miss/Mistress/Master, to me.

When she started filming in public, BBC put out a press release that Michelle Gomez was cast as Gatekeeper of the Nethersphere.

...Matrix?

If anything holds weight it's Miss/Mistress/Master, to me.

I'm not sure about that one... The two major things we know Missy was responsible for (setting the Doctor and Clara to meet up in "The Bells of Saint John", and bringing them to the cyborg guy's restaurant in this ep) have been helpful to the Doctor, so it seems she's not (at least not intentionally) antagonistic to the Doctor, which would rule out the Master. (Unless his experiences in "Last of the Time Lords" made him into a good guy or something.)

A nefarious supervillain could help their rival in the short-term only to set them up for some operatic revenge.

oh missy

http://media.tumblr.com/258ac50dc271a5782a747082ae1faa2a/tumblr_inline_n8ziibZZ8g1rnlhg5.gif

Vastra/jenny/Strax are great but they were not introduced well into the series; that episode (whatever it was...a good man goes to war?) where they get people formerly impacted by the doctor to come and help him out was problematic in that none of those people had ever been shown before and it didn't make any sense at all at the time. I still feel like the real introduction never happened

Most of those people had been shown before, in the previous six episodes, when they shot their appearances for Good Man (pirate captain and son, space spitfires, idrc what else) [actually pirate ep might not even have been shot yet?]. Vastra/Jenny and Strax NOT having been seen before was EXCELLENT AND FUN storytelling, not bad storytelling: the Doctor has had thousands of years of off-screen adventures in which he has met thousands of people that we haven’t seen. Note also in the same episode, the girl who life-changingly remembers him from her childhood but he doesn’t, possibly because he’s not even had that adventure yet.

i thought the "lol u old" bit was in many ways a message to the nextgen who fan as personified by the "HE'S OOGLY!" girl who were all hung up on the optics

http://37.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyp986r8fv1qcwhkeo1_400.gif

If introductory elements are sheared off in streamlining in group scriptwriting meetings or something

There are no group scriptwriting meetings.

* What was up with the dinosaur's size? It seems they made it way bigger than it should've been just so that they would get that cool opening scene... But previously, when Dr. Who has twisted historical facts, they've at least tried to give it some justification, and here there was none.

Yes there was, in dialogue between Jenny and Vastra.

so what's with the ambiguity now?

We’ve never seen this Doctor before, we don’t know if he would kill. We don’t know if he knows if he would.

when the Doctor asks where Clara got his number, she does say, "The woman in the shop wrote it down... She said it's the best helpline out there, in the universe". So apparently they really were setting up this plotline back then already

When that was written, the woman in the shop was a splinter of Clara; by the time they made Name Of The Doctor, there wasn’t room to include it.

So Missy is The Rani, rite?

FPd you for that

maybe it's Iris Wildthyme

Vastra/Jenny and Strax NOT having been seen before was EXCELLENT AND FUN storytelling, not bad storytelling: the Doctor has had thousands of years of off-screen adventures in which he has met thousands of people that we haven’t seen.

I totally agree with this... When I saw the episode, I thought they were just a pair of cool characters, everything you needed to know about them at that point was in that episode. When they became recurring characters, a little more background info was needed, and it was given. Introducing characters without any backstory and then slowly revealing the backstory is such a basic plot device, I don't get why people would be so confused by this?

* What was up with the dinosaur's size? It seems they made it way bigger than it should've been just so that they would get that cool opening scene... But previously, when Dr. Who has twisted historical facts, they've at least tried to give it some justification, and here there was none.

Yes there was, in dialogue between Jenny and Vastra.

That wasn't a justification though, it was just Vastra saying, "you're wrong, dinosaurs actually were that big!". Admittedly this is a very minor thing to complain about, but it just bugged me for some reason.

so what's with the ambiguity now?

We’ve never seen this Doctor before, we don’t know if he would kill. We don’t know if he knows if he would.

If all the previous incarnations have been willing to kill, why would any viewer think this Doctor wouldn't do it? I dunno, it just felt like they were trying to introduce ambiguity where no ambiguity has existed before, which was a bit weird. I guess it's possible the no killing thing will become a plot element later on, though; in that case, mea culpa.

when the Doctor asks where Clara got his number, she does say, "The woman in the shop wrote it down... She said it's the best helpline out there, in the universe". So apparently they really were setting up this plotline back then already

When that was written, the woman in the shop was a splinter of Clara; by the time they made Name Of The Doctor, there wasn’t room to include it.

So Clara meeting the Doctor was originally going to be a Grandfather Paradox? (She gave her past self the number so that Past Clara would meet the Doctor, but if Past Clara hadn't already met the Doctor, she wouldn't have had the number to begin with.)

The Claras sent throughout the Doctors' timeline were not linear, each one existed separately.

(Moffatt did happily do a recursive paradox in the resolution of the Pandorica though.)

That wasn't a justification though, it was just Vastra saying, "you're wrong, dinosaurs actually were that big!". Admittedly this is a very minor thing to complain about, but it just bugged me for some reason.

I don't even know that Vastra is definitively saying that they were that big, it's more the first hint of the verbal d/s play that the episode makes a point of, establishing her primacy over Jenny in public just for the sake of it, rather than making an actual correction. You can assume that Lady Dino got made too big as a side-effect of the TARDIS' dimensional controls, during the trip through the vortex. cf. Planet Of Giants and ep 4 of The Time Meddler.

The Claras sent throughout the Doctors' timeline were not linear, each one existed separately.

But they still wouldn't have existed if Clara hadn't met the Doctor; and if one of them had caused Clara to meet the Doctor, it still would've been a paradox.

It seem these kind of predestination paradoxes (the time traveller was always meant to change the past, there is no version of history where she didn't travel back and change things) are perfectly okay in the Who universe, since they happen all the time. (For example, in "The Shakespeare Code" the Doctor quotes plays that Shakespeare hadn't written them yet, and he "borrows" the quotes from the Doctor.) It's only when a time traveller changes an already established chain of events that things get messy. Or at least they should get messy, but it seems the latter type of paradoxes are okay too if the writers feel like using them. (For example, in "The Time of the Doctor" he changes his own timeline so that he doesn't die on Trenzalore, even though "The Name of the Doctor" had already established that he dies there and his body is left behind. For some reason this doesn't seem to be problematic in any way, even though in "The Wedding of River Song" a similar paradox [saving the Doctor when it had already been established he will die] almost made the whole universe implode.)

This has always been my biggest problem with time travel in Dr. Who. IMO good time travel sci-fi (like the Back to the Future trilogy ) always establishes rules for time travel and sticks to them; the challenge the characters then face is how they can get what they want without breaking the rules. But with Dr. Who the rules change on the whim of the writers: something that was a universe-breaking paradox in one episode is no big deal in another one.

With the introduction of Vastra, as I say above the same actress had played a different member of her species in that episode set in the Welsh mining town with the same Doctor and sidekicks. Which might count as enough of an introduction to some degree. I also think the same species had been introduced with earlier Doctors. I'm picturing a Peter Davison episode where the costume dept had slipped to the point where there is a hobby horse running around in the background that I think may have otherwise been an encounter with that species. I think that itself was a reintroduction of this species from one of the early doctors.

As to scale of Dinosaur, I thought it odd that the T-rex was able to swallow the Tardis which must have happened at the earlier prehistoric time they then traveled from. & I thought the external skin of the TArdis was supposed to be some protection from the external forces during time and space travel. Not sure where I'm getting that from but think I've heard it. Could be that there is some kind of bubble thrown up by the Tardis that would include things in its immediate vicinity. Have just remembered seeing things like Donna waving from the open door of a flying Tardis and Matt Smith and possibly David Tennant hanging from a flying one, all of which are at low speed in space and time. just surprised that a dinosaur would be able to fly through millions of years on the outside of a Tardis.
EDIT & now i find that the previous Xmas episode had Clara hanging on the outside of the TARDIS causing the Tardis to extend its shielding and slow the journey down. Which wouldn't make a great deal of sense with its ability to bring the Dinosaur forward in time. & surely it would just dematerialise from inside the beastie anyway.

Just trying to think what had been seen previously of Capaldi as the doctor, I was thinking he'd been introduced but I guess that was just the extracurricular stuff like the Zoe Ball introduction show and however many seconds you see of him in the Day Of The Doctor. Now looking up the episode title I find taht he was introduced. So did they crash into a prehistoric era, encounter the dinosaur in a Tardis that had lost sync with its surrounding dimensions in terms of size since the Doctor wasn't in control? Or are there any other continuity flaws that one can retrofit?

Sorry, just realising that the end of that needed more explanation if you hadn't seen the way Capaldi was introduced. Just seen it said that he regenerates in the control room, complains about his kidneys and asks Clara if she can fly the Tardis which he says is crashing.

I don't think it's worth worrying about the dinosaur and the Tardis too much - it's just a fun bit of spectacle to open the episode. They've established the shield thing throughout the Moffat era - the Doctor taking Amy for a space walk in S5 etc. Sure, it's a bit of a stretch to bring the dinosaur along for the ride, but hey, it's not hard SF.

Re the Doctor potentially murdering the droid... surely this is a big deal. Yes there have been times when he's done dark shit, but he's hardly one to off villains with gung-ho gusto. He always tries to find another way - that was the point of the Day of the Doctor. So for the 12th to potentially go back on that is disturbing. The deliberate ambiguity of the Droid's demise seems to tie into the 'Am I a good man?' theme.

Fair point that they've introduced new character traits for Clara rather out of the blue, but at least they've recognised the need to write her properly.

Yes there have been times when he's done dark shit, but he's hardly one to off villains with gung-ho gusto.

Was it really "gung-ho custo" when he was struggling for his life? The cyborg guy was trying to kill him! Previous Doctors have had no problem killing villains in similar situations, that's why I found it weird that all of sudden it was a big thing.

I thought this could probably have done with being a good half an hour shorter than it actually was, most of what was between the credits and the restaurant scene felt like padding, although it got a lot better after that. A big part of this is that regeneration crises are just boring, especially when the stakes aren't actually rising as a result of the Doctor's (physical or mental) absence.

The "you don't see him, you're only seeing his face" stuff was forced and lame, but then again I'm increasingly irritated by Moffatt shows' tendency towards real-time knowing meta-dialogue with the audience. The most recent series of Sherlock did it as well, isn't it enough to just tell a good story without having to pre-emptively address every social media criticism that might emerge at the same time?

I'm a fan of the Vastra/Jenny/Strax characters, though, and I'm fairly sure some people on this thread hate them so wouldn't really have enjoyed a large swathe of this

I don't hate them by any means but they're being overused at this point, the Strax joke was great for a while but is starting to wear thin. I don't think the actress who plays Jenny is particularly good, she mostly comes across as a bit wet, and I'm sure that's not the intention. Vastra is cool but they should do more with her. I like how we're now at the stage where they can show a lesbian kiss on prime-time kids' TV without even the Mail bothering to act outraged.

The breath-holding bit was silly really, a bit of a rehash of "don't blink", except everyone watching is capable of holding their breath more than once in a row.

But Capaldi really was excellent I thought, and there's the making of some decent onscreen chemistry between him and Jenna Coleman, in a way there wasn't with Matt Smith. The restaurant scene in particular was great, both in terms of the two characters bouncing off one another and then the creepiness that followed.

xp Added to that, the droid in the skin blimp was the master-droid - if he/it was destroyed, the others would all power down and themselves be destroyed. Along with being in a struggle, the Doctor seemed to be aware of that, which mitigates, if not excuses, his actions.

Vastra is cool but they should do more with her.

This is totally true: she's supposed to be this sci-fi Sherlock Holmes, with Jenny as her Watson, but we never actually see her doing any detective stuff. That's why a spinoff series featuring the three would be a cool thing, then they'd be able to develop Strax and Jenny too, beyond the two-dimensional roles they occupy now. According to Wikipedia, BBC has actually suggested a spinoff, but Moffat has declined because he doesn't have the time to do it. Couldn't they just get someone else as a producer/showrunner?

Though I suspect production costs are also one reason there hasn't yet been a spinoff, because the Victorian-era setting would make it more expensive than Torchwood and Sarah Jane Adventures were.

Want to know how Silurians had giant dinosaurs? Did they experiment with genetic modification? To find out listen to: http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/bloodtide-647

Couldn't they just get someone else as a producer/showrunner?

Even if current Who contracts allow this in a way that classic ones didn't, do you think "they" would choose to alienate the head writer and executive producer of two of their biggest worldwide successes currently(/ever)?

I've seen my first "MOFFATT IS THE NEXUS OF ALL MISOGYNY" reaction to this episode of Facebook and I don't get it.

I do agree that it was semi-aggravating that every character was fixated on The Doctor but that tends to happen in regeneration stories, so I got over it after about a second.

Also, afterward BBC America was showing random hodgepodge episodes and literally every single time a 10/Rose interaction came up it was horrible in a way I don't think the show has really been since. I don't get why that whole Thing was okay (especially when they circled back to Rose at the end of Donna's season and gave her her own pet Doctor) and Moffatt showing that a terrified person can still stand up to a murderous android by drawing entirely on her own experiences is the epitome of misogyny, particularly when the show later goes on to explicitly acknowledge all of the ways they fucked up 11/Clara during their goodbye conversation.

I don't get it either; this episode was almost less bad about women than the entire series has been since inception.

I guess accusing a woman of being a control freak when she's shown no real evidence of that beyond wanting a bit of independence is dodgy. But I'd still probably put that down to clumsy writing rather than moffat hating women.

Like, I understood the arguments people were making re: Amy/11, I just disagreed with them. I also understood all of the ways in which the plot mechanics were set up almost by design to sideline and marginalize Clara, (although as sic says I think some of this was meant to be intentionally unflattering for the Doctor and Smith's charisma carried a lot of fans past that realization) and how that's shitty. I don't understand how hitting the reset button on the entire Doctor/companion relationship and having a character whose was most notable for being at the center of a mystery no one really cared about start to become more than just a cipher who asks the right questions is proof that the show has fallen into an irredeemable pit of misogyny.

Having said that, I think there's always been more to Clara as a character than people have said (most notably in "Cold War" and "Hide", where she is clearly terrified of and bothered by what's happening around her but fighting through that to participate in events anyway) but the aforementioned stupid mystery was so hamfistedly done that it never had a chance to coalesce. I'm hoping that the trend continues and Clara becomes as cool as she was when she was a helpful Dalek.

cp: the "control freak" thing is a fair point; I think they intended to sow the seeds for that throughout her original stories but it got downplayed/overshadowed by the stupid mystery

I skipped the last Doctor and tuned in to watch this season cuz hey maybe this new Capaldi guy will be good and while I was predisposed to him I felt like I was watching an episode of Buffy and just gave up after 20 minutes

lol it got much, much better after 20 minutes

I'm just not interested in the emotional politics jibber-jabber, I couldn't even keep up with it some of it was rattled off so fast

Buffy is awesome so I do not understand how that is a complaint.

sometimes I like different shows to do different things but I mean the critique only in a general way - supporting cast soap opera hijinks were never what interested me most about Dr. Who, and seeing them become so central is sort of disconcerting. It makes sense that it's filling that cultural gap of nerd-soap-opera, I get why it's happened and it explains why the re-launched show has achieved an entirely different level of popularity/reached a new audience that is much different from the one I grew up with. Whatever, it's fine, I'm old, I can always watch my Tom Baker DVDs if I want glacially paced, intermittently humorous, high-concept sci-fi nonsense.

it did get much better after twenty minutes btw
though it never completely stopped being nonsense
i'm old too.

I liked this, but the first part was just so badly directed. Those loooong shots might have been good for the melancholic and unsettling scenes, but it just killed all the humor in the first part.

I haven't seen Ben Wheatleys A Field in England yet, and now I'm less inclined to.

it did get much better after twenty minutes btw
though it never completely stopped being nonsense

let's be fair; if it wasn't nonsense, it wouldn't be Doctor Who

I haven't seen Ben Wheatleys A Field in England yet, and now I'm less inclined to.

film is amazing. bears absolutely no resemblance to this episode, or any of the other Wheatley films I've seen

Yeah, everyone should watch it, it's nuts.

"I felt like I was watching an episode of Buffy and just gave up after 20 minutes"

does not compute

also most of the last doctor's run was really good so you missed out there.

I wouldn't say 'most', but definitely some fun stories.

I'd say "most"; 11's tenure didn't really fall apart until "The Angels Take Manhattan" (which I still enjoyed, mind you)

I watched the first episode of his run and just hated the actor, sorry (this happens sometimes with Doctors)

Capaldi def more appealing

You must like eyebrows a lot.

can't really argue with that, but Smith grew into that role quickly, I think....Capaldi is obviously more of a natural. And yeah, I think most of smith's run was great. I don't even really agree with the 'falling apart' bit; the worst thing about his run was the frantic pace in some of the stories, particularly in the middle of the River Song/baby / Doctor is dead arc, where shit just got confusing for me. I didn't have the problem with the Clara storyline like some others did. I did get sick of hearing 'impossible girl' a million times though.

It took a while for him to grow on me, but IMO Smith was the best of the three nu-Who Doctors, definitely the most versatile. If you dislike "emotional politics jibber-jabber", there was a lot less of that during the Smith/Moffat era than the Tennant/Davies era, plus Smith was more subdued as the Doctor than Tennant was. As a whole, I thought season 6 was the best of the 7 we've had so far, even if didn't have the best single episodes.

(xpost to Shakey)

I sometimes think Nu-Who has yet to top its first season.

I really like Matt Smiith so hope he goes onto something worthwhile. Shame they didn't finish the Ruby In The Smoke trilogy with him and Billie Piper.

First season is a strong contender for the best, even if, in retrospect, I don't really like Eccleston's take on the Doctor (a little too hammy, a little too grinny).

Late to the party sorry but I'll throw in my 2 cents for what it's worth

- Love Capaldi Doctor! Maybe even more than I hoped I would. Comedy was great, his interaction with Clara good & v moving at the end there

- the whole DONT BREATHE thing was so dumb & so tiresome

- let's never mention Vastra & Jenny & Strax Cirque Du Soleiling in from the ceiling on scarves ever again

- Capaldi looks p dope in his natty Doctor threads

- let's never mention Vastra & Jenny & Strax Cirque Du Soleiling in from the ceiling on scarves ever again

nah this was lols, bcz you could tell what the joke was going to be, but then it was well-paced and framed so just a shared delight with the makers and the audience

Yeah, I liked that scene, it didn't feel like Circue du Soleil to me, rather than "Victorian Mission Impossible", which I thought was fun.

but then it was well-paced and framed

nb in contrast with all of the following bits of fight scene

I also liked Strax Zoidberg - in general I'm more than okay with varying tone of "New Doctor has existential crisis" vs "Some unengaging nonsense with monsters who are disguised as other things" - but then in general I'm okay with varying tones anyway. I thought it was a nice touch to throw the 'broom' question at the clockwork man from a Doctor who has just changed all of him and is trying to figure out what's unchanged.

Actually, the point where my love of varying tone possibly refuses the fence = if I remember correctly, after Mme Vastra tricks him into knocking himself out, there's a very kid's TV sound effect.

I thought it was a nice touch to throw the 'broom' question at the clockwork man from a Doctor who has just changed all of him and is trying to figure out what's unchanged.

Just so no one misses the point, in this scene they have the Doctor holding a plate as a mirror in front of the cyborg guys's face - but the flipside of the plate is also reflective, so the Doctor sees his own face there. It was such an obvious thing, but still a nice touch.

Also, my first thought about the end was that heaven looked like the place in 'the Girl Who Waited', but that totally isn't it, at all, right?

Turns out it actually is the same garden! That's probably a coincidence, though: apparently the real garden they used is conveniently located just outside Cardiff, so it's been used in Torchwood and Sarah Jane Adventures too. Still, the visual parallel between this ep and "The Girl Who Waited" made me think of another theory regarding Missy's identity... In that episode, Old Amy felt she was abandoned by the Doctor on that planet; what if Missy is some previously unseen companion that the Doctor did actually abandon? We know he can be a bit of a dick, and that he has a short attention span, so it's perfectly he has had some companions he'd totally forgotten about, left behind in some planet or era they don't belong to.

Furthermore, there's a clear parallel between the Doctor telling Clara he's not her boyfriend, and Missy telling the cyborg guy the Doctor is her boyfriend. What if Missy was a companion who, just like Clara, thought the Doctor loved him, but this time, unlike with Clara, the Doctor never bothered to clear things up? If the Doctor forgetting her made her go a bit crazy, that would explain why she still thinks the Doctor is her boyfriend. Also, based on the first ep the theme of this series seems to be the Doctor facing his old mistakes, so having an abandoned companion as the villain would fit into that.

Of course all of the above would also fit if Missy is some kind of a parallel timeline version of Clara... But that wouldn't explain why she has a different face.

Completely out-there guess - she's the Valeyard of River Song. Largely based on her 'real' name (Gatekeeper of the Nethersphere), which is all a bit Trial of a Timelord/Matrix related; also that Moffatt doesn't seem to be able to leave his favourite characters alone so I doubt we've seen the end of either the Weeping Angels or River Bleedin' Song.

Well, TBH, I don't think River's story ever got a proper conclusion... Okay, she doesn't have a body anymore and is stuck in a computer simulation, but it remains unclear why the Doctor doesn't even try to get her out of there? You'd think a person with his resources would be able to do it somehow?

Weeping Angels, OTOH, are such a case of diminishing returns you'd think even Moffatt had understood it by now? What a way to ruin a brilliant one-off concept, let's hope we never see them again.

Anyway, can someone explain this whole Valeyard/Matrix business to me? I see people refer to them every once in a while, but not having seen any old-Who, they're a mystery to me.

I semi consciously put together a theory where Missy is in the core drive of the TARDIS which I think i remember being described as being a black hole type set up. Think this was from one of the few Doctor Who novels I've read as an adult, which makes me think it's the one where they are at Los Olvidados or whatever the name of the place where Oppenheimer was working on the nuclear bomb was.

She meets both robots and humans when they die in connection to the Doctor. Sorry will make that the only spoiler.

Trying to remember what happened to Idris the previous embodiment of the TArdis at the end of the Doctor's wife. Was the entity destroyed as such by being reintegrated with the machine? Which might explain why there was a different personification of that character introduced.

Anyway looks like whoever that entity known as Missy is she's more benevolent than malevolent though I've only seen her twice so could be further development later in the series.
I think there have been other people who've been sucked into the TARDIS's drive, though they were far from benevolent to the Doctor etc. Trying to think exactly what the stories were that happened in.

Actually to clarify I think the black hole set up is the power core driving the TARDIS. Just got the idea that the TARDIS has its own little world inside that. Though there would not be a need for a spatial presence for a world that data/spirits /whatever inhabited when there is a series of dimensions at play anyway.
JUst wondering, thinking about that, how stable the insides of the TARDIS are actually supposed to b.
If rooms etc change locations which I think they do, did the Girl Who Waited see a Tardis reconfiguring alongside its Doctor? I think earlier Doctors have ejected large amounts of rooms like Peter Davidson in Castrovalva I also think there were some references by Tom Baker to rooms moving.

& was Idris's personification a result of the Tardis being in its temporary location outside the normal space/time continuum as set up at the beginning of that episode.

Anyway, can someone explain this whole Valeyard/Matrix business to me? I see people refer to them every once in a while, but not having seen any old-Who, they're a mystery to me.

You're really really better off not knowing anything about the Valeyard - even if you watch the whole 14-episode story, it makes no sense at all. This may or may not be related to the last episode being written by drastically untalented people who vocally thought Dr Who was stupid and who were legally prohibited from reading the script notes by the bloke who'd written a previous version when the ORIGINAL writer who was meant to be wrapping it up had died mid-episode.

valyard was supposed to be some intermediary regeneration before the doctor's final regeneration and was evil. it was'nt a terrible idea but it was executed horribly and was never really mentioned again (actually it was in the name of the doctor, I think). I don't expect it to come up as a plot point again

Yeah, the word Valeyard was mentioned in "The Name of Doctor", though I don't think there was anything more said about it except that it's a future name of the Doctor? I've gathered that he's an evil regeneration of the Doctor, but that's about all I know of him. Doing an evil version of the Doctor is such an obvious idea that I'm surprised if it hasn't been done than once? Though I guess the Master is kinda like that too.

SPOILER

It was also done in "Amy's Choice"

END SPOILER

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. The Dream Lord was kind of a minor character though.

Wasn't the Valeyard first introduced during the Tom Baker story Invasion of Time where he's returned on Gallifrey? It certainly appears during the Colin Baker series where he's on trial The Trial of A Timelord.

It''s been about 5 years since i watched through the serieses but I thought there was some mention during that Tom Baker story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeyard

I tried to read that, but it's still confusing as hell... The Valeyard is the Doctor's future incarnation, but he still tries to get the Doctor executed? Why would he want that, wouldn't he'd stop existing too when the Doctor dies, since the Doctor would never have the chance to regenerate into him?

OH MY GOD HE'S OOGLY: nu-Who season 8

but then it was well-paced and framed

nb in contrast with all of the following bits of fight scene

watched The Krotons ep 1 last night (up on iView this week, Australian readers): Jamie slowly arm-wrestling a dude with an axe in real time >>> the Paternoster gang being trapped in a circle of robots with sword-wrists for about ten minutes, their time, while not really doing anything

I thought that I'd seen the Silurians the species that Vastra comes from in much earlier episodes.
They date back to Jon Pertwee days, though they look pretty different at that point.
JUst come across links to the Peter Davison episode I refer to earlier in the thread, it's called Warlords of the Deep and it seems they economised greatly on the way they portrayed the aliens. This is the Silurians
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwExauvltnM

and this is the Myrca the creature I said looked like a hobby horse, I meant as in morris dancing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUCSlb-jhsU
you have to wait about a minute into the clip though but it is shortly followed by some of the least convincing martial arts i've ever seen.

That second clip is one of my favorite Doctor Who scenes of all time.

Warriors of the Deep is the earliest Who story I can remember watching on first broadcast (I would've been five) and I thought it was incredible so I've avoided watching it again ever since.

The Myrka is effectively frightening to a five year-old I can tell you.

My other most fondly remembered serial from childhood is Paradise Towers, haha. Which I have rewatched.

Oh god, I remember when that scene with the Myrka was broadcast - my brother and me looked at each other and laughed for a full minute, it seemed. He was a Who sceptic and would regularly rib me about the crappy monsters and effects, but even I had to laugh at that.

How old were you?

Holy shit at karate vs. Myrka, I laughed so hard!

Warriors of the Deep is alternately hilarious and GRIM AS ALL FUCK, I love it so much.

I liked Paradise Towers at the time too. I was pretty easy to please.

"I tried to read that, but it's still confusing as hell... The Valeyard is the Doctor's future incarnation, but he still tries to get the Doctor executed? Why would he want that, wouldn't he'd stop existing too when the Doctor dies, since the Doctor would never have the chance to regenerate into him?"

well, we said it wasn't well thought out or well done.

Paradise Towers is a secretly amazing story weighed down by a couple of bizarre, nonsensical production choices IMO. I was shocked at not only how well it held up when I rewatched it a few years ago, but also by how much better it was than things like The Happiness Patrol and The Greatest Show in the Galaxy.

correct, except Greatest Show is one of the most secretly amazing stories in the series' history

Bin POLLer: Red Kangs Vs Blue Kangs POO

I like Greatest Show too. I'm pretty fond of McCoy's stretch, even the bad stories, since they were the first ones I saw on first-run

That makes me feel old. I grew up watching Tom Baker and Peter Davison. By the time McCoy got the gig I had pretty much stopped watching.

I'm not sure how much of that later stuff I'd seen prior to downloading and watching the whole lot through about 5 years ago. I know I saw Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker as a kid. Think I saw some of the davison at least.
I may have watched bits of McCoy & the 2nd Baker. Can't remember.
Do remember that I had seen Sylvester McCoy on stage at Stratford when I was a kid, in a play called An Italian Straw Hat the poster for which I had up on my wall for a while after.
Also knew Davison from It Shouldn't Happen To A Vet.

But Tom Baker is still a pretty definitive Doctor. His autobio Who On Earth Is Tom Baker is a really really good read too.

he is oogly

I have a stupid question- If Clara The Impossible Girl has been in every phase of the Doctor's life, why does she have such a hard time reconciling how he is after regeneration? Did she get her memory wiped after the 50th anniversary show? I can't remember.

She vaguely remembers being fragmented through the Doctor's timeline but not really; they basically handwaved past this in 11th's last story.

If we care to fanwank this: she basically splintered into different times, and each of the splinters has its own discrete consciousness that isn't shared among the others, so that when she "returns" to the normal timeline, she doesn't have access to the memories of the splinters.

got it. I knew it was a handwave, just couldn't remember the circumstances. It got pretty jumbled as these things tend to do.

A simpler answer is "shitty writing".

I feel like you're not getting into the proper spirit of the Whoniverse

(says the dude who keeps making fun of various McCoy stories)

wibbly-wobbly hacky-lazy

It's also a resigned shake of the head because I was thinking about pre-showrunner Moffatt stories and quite how enjoyable and well-plotted they would be and now he just repeatedly gets himself tied up in these stupid and pointless narrative knots.

does the doctor usually have memory loss after regeneration? his confusion seemed out of place but wasn't sure if there was a precendent for it

I think so, to some degree. Think there certainly was with Matt Smith who was trying to work out pretty much everything in 7 year old Amy's house including do fish fingers go with custard.

& David Tennant had the Christmas invasion where he spends most of the episode sick in bed at the Tyler's place.

Think pre gap doctors all had at least one scene where they were trying to work out who they were through their wardrobe etc. I know Tom baker has a long scene where he tries on a load of different outfits with various levels of reality including Pierrot and viking outfits.
i've just seen a scene where McCoy does something similar. I watched the potted histories of the Doctors that were on BBC America 5 days before the Capaldi debut.

& Ecclestone is checking out his face in various reflections apparently getting used to it despite other indications that he has been in that regeneration for a while I think.

This regeneration was probably more traumatic anyway since he wasn't expecting to get one. Doesn't he just get given the power to do so after he's pretty much died of old age and other complicatons?

A lot of this makes more sense when you think that these introducing-the-doctor stories are really just to hold the hands of the audience through the trauma. Matt was so popular (he doubled the audience of the show) that they reeeeeeally needed to acknowledge that people were going to get whiplash - hence opening the show with familiar characters, characters being the voice of the audience, etc etc

I am totally down with and loving Capaldi but I'm thinking Moff needs to take off - that's where my tiredness comes from watching the show sometimes. There are way too many things that feel like he's parodying himself

Most obvious handholding being the phone call - 'please keep our ratings high and continue to love us!'

matt dc otm; who apologists go to insane lengths to justify the bad decisions that plague a lot of this writing

So Matt doubled the audience, but Moffat needs to go...

the phone call was actually a nice touch, had a feeling he'd pop up somehow but that was done very well.

felt desperate to me, but I was kinda done with Smith

It was sweet within the scene, a lovely cap on the themes of acceptance of change through the episode, a lovely mini-echo of the thrill of the cameo at the end of the 50th, and a fun, tiny example of Moffatt’s interest in actually using time travel for various storytelling possibilities, as exercised since Continuity Errors.

This is one of the only times the show has ever even had the opportunity to do a multi-Doctor appearance on a small scale, due to continuity of creative personnel*, which makes it not only worth taking the chance, but exciting that they kept it a surprise for viewers.

It’s also going to play really differently for all future viewers of Who, who’ll be running directly from the Trenzalore episode into this on their streaming marathons – it’s not like the past, where it has been six months or more between the previous Doctor’s last episode and the new one’s first, and you’d never see the earlier episode again. It’ll play more like closure of the hand-over, especially given the uncharacteristically abrupt regeneration itself.

*TOO LONG DON'T READ but since it occurred to me:

Wiles had actually had Hartnell written out in the middle of a four-parter, before higher-ups balked and gave Hartnell a contract extension, making both Wiles (producer) and Tosh (script editor) quit. It only took replacement producer Lloyd one story into the next season before writing him out permanently.

All hands changed between Spearhead and Silurians, along with the setting, the colour, and the cast (and Sherwin had been trying to leave for months anyway; Bryant had been almost-taking over for months, but got sent with him to a new assignment); there was a two-month gap in production before the new crew started filming again, but they became the most stable creative team in the show’s history, and came up with the idea of multi-Doctoring for the 10th anniversary. They (Letts/Dicks) then (on purpose this time) left after Tom’s first story.

Bidmead, script editor of Tom’s last season, wrote the first of Davison’s, but wasn’t commissioned to do so until months after he’d left – and they made that one after making the subsequent THREE MONTHS’ worth of episodes anyway. That whole season went through three script editors, four if you count JNT making commissions and creating K-9 & Company himself.

Davison -> Colin was the first time, 21 years into the series, where the producer and script editor carried on across a change in Doctors for more than one transitional story, and it was only five months after The Five Doctors. And TBF, Saward (I think? it’s not the sort of thing Holmes cared about) did put the past companions, even wee dead Adric and doofy old Kamelion, into Davison’s dying hallucinations.

Saward quit explosively an episode before the end of the Trial, story-deaf JNT began commissioning stories again, Colin was fired so hard he refused to even shoot a regeneration, let alone consider multi-Doctor crossovering, and Cartmel’s approach once he took over after McCoy’s first story was about changing the style, tone, and considerations of the series, not looking back.

Obv nobody carried on in the 8-year and 1-ocean gaps before and after McGann.

RTD and Julie stayed in place for Ecclestone -> Tennant, the second instance in 43 years, at a time when the actor refused to do anything at all with the show, and they needed to be moving ahead anyway.

And every single senior production person, and 100% of the cast, changed between Tennant and Smith, though Moffatt tried to convince Tennant into staying on a year.

a fun, tiny example of Moffatt’s interest in actually using time travel for various storytelling possibilities, as exercised since Continuity Errors.

This is one of the only times the show has ever even had the opportunity to do a multi-Doctor appearance on a small scale, due to continuity of creative personnel*, which makes it not only worth taking the chance, but exciting that they kept it a surprise for viewers.

I totally agree with this... I loved Smith, and I didn't know he was gonna be in this, so it was indeed a pleasant surprise. And given that the Doctor's main thing is that he's an ages-old time traveller, in-universe it feels a bit strange that he doesn't come into contact with his past or future selves more often. And I liked the idea that a contact like this doesn't have to be something huge that's advertised well in advance, it can be small and low-key like here.

IMO, a great idea for an episode would be that the Doctor casually meets some strange person from the future... And later on, when the Doctor regenerates, we find out that person was the Doctor's incarnation. Since he keeps on meeting his past incarnations, there's no reason why shouldn't occasionally meet future ones too. Though of course pulling off a trick like this would mean they'd have to keep the casting of the next Doctor a secret, which probably isn't possible?

Though if the Roman guy Capaldi played in the Pompeii episode turns out to be the Doctor in disguise, I guess they would've sorta done this, in a retconnish way... In the old-Who era, did any of the Doctor actors appear in some other role before they were cast as him?

Yep, the Sixth played a Time Lord guard in a story with the Fifth.

Colin Baker appears in uniform on Gallifrey before he becomes the Doctor. I think he's a Palace Guard officer or something.

Is there any link between the characters played by the old & young Bernard Cribbins? Or is the young one just in a film so not count?

Ah. That's easy. Just waggle his tail.

Thanks for the info! I guess in those cases they didn't try to explain why some random character looked like the future Doctor, like they're doing now with Capaldi?

(xpost)

Well, now his probe circuit's jammed.

T - nope. However, in the late 1970s, Time Lady companion Romana regenerated at the start of a new season, "trying on" a series of bodies before settling in the new actress' -- who had appeared in the last story the previous year. So there's precedent there!

I hope they don't do any more than the couple of references in Deep Breath - it was just enough imo.

Is there any link between the characters played by the old & young Bernard Cribbins? Or is the young one just in a film so not count?

Philip Madoc appeared in the same film (1966), The Krotons (1968), The War Games (1969), The Brain Of Morbius (1976), and The Power Of Kroll (1978). He played different characters, from different planets, in each.

I as actually wondering when I wrote that if they were connected at all. I guess that means no.

I hope they don't do any more than the couple of references in Deep Breath - it was just enough imo.

Wasn't the story that Davies had some explanation why the Pompeii guy and the guy Capaldi played in Torchwood look the same? And Moffatt asked him if the explanation still works for the Doctor looking the same, and Davies said it does. So it sound like we're going to get that explanation.

I don't think the references in Deep Breath were enough, the Doctor says he chose that particular face to remind himself of something, but it's still unclear what that something is. TBH I don't think there was any need to explain why he looks like another character (since using the same actors in different roles happens all the time on TV), but now that they've decided to hint that there is a some mysterious reason for it, they do owe us the full story.

Time Lady companion Romana regenerated at the start of a new season, "trying on" a series of bodies before settling in the new actress' -- who had appeared in the last story the previous year. So there's precedent there!

This is interesting! Was there any plot-specific reason why she chose that particular body, or did they just like the actress?

What the Doctor seemed to be saying in "Deep Breath" was that he (perhaps unconsciously?) figured out something important, and he chose Capaldi's face so he could make the new incarnation remember what that important thing was. Which seems like an pointlessly complex of conveying messages from one incarnation to another, why not just leave a post-it note on the TARDIS's wall or something?

Trying on different bodies would seem to go against the finite number of regenerations thing wouldn't it? Or does that not count since she's in the process of stabilising?
Presume it was before the number was stated then?

While thinking about Romana, looks like I just got it confirmed that it was the same actress Lalla Ward that is married to Richard Dawkins. Think I'd seen a dedication to her in the front of a book by him i was looking at & wondered if there were 2 Lalla Wards.

Had Clara's passion for Marcus Aurelius been established before? Because it seemed a bit odd popping up in this episode & in combination w/ Capaldi wondering where he got his face, it made me think there would be something vaguely Roman happening down the line.

(Mostly enjoyed the episode. Capaldi great & thought the restaurant scene had a real creepiness that Who hasn't pulled off lately)

Had Clara's passion for Marcus Aurelius been established before?

IIRC it was established long before Capaldi was cast? But if they have some Roman theme coming, I guess serendipitous that they could also tie that in.

Agree with you about the restaurant scene, that was much creepier than the "don't breath" scenes.

xp oh, ok, I just didn't remember that at all.

Maybe I remember it wrong though? I haven't rewatched the Clara episodes, but I have a recollection of it being mentioned during the previous season.

no, quite right, though not pre-capaldi-casting - she quotes him in the Day of the Doctor apparently:
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Marcus_Aurelius

Oh, okay! Then I guess it might be intentional foreshadowing?

I thought that was a pretty lousy series opener. Apart from a few bits of business, Capaldi was a bit... predictable? And Clara is boring as ever - you can blame the scriptwriters for not developing her character, but this is what, Clara's tenth episode? It's a lazy performance, and even worse, she can't do jokes.

Actually I thought Capaldi had better chemistry with the tramp - maybe he should have been the companion.

Clara's getting better imo but I'm not a big fan of Jenna Coleman – and yeah I don't really like her quip delivery - feels like there's a lot of rote pert sarcasm.

I would love it if they ditched Clara for a elderly lady companion like Evelyn Miles and turned it into one of those British old people mystery shows. I guess that would totally alienate about 2/3rds of the viewership though.

And Clara is boring as ever

Huh, I thought Clara was way way better than she ever has been before in this episode.

yeah I noticed I disliked her far less than I had previously. So hope she continues to improve.
I'm still trying to remember what that characteristic i that I read breeders breed into pets that makes them look far more like their immature/baby/puppy version than the mature version originally did. Cos I wanted to use it to describe the version of her that was in the last Matt Smith series, all overlarge eyes and all. she looks like she belongs in a 70s Japanese cartoon like Marine Boy or something.

Hey have you ever seen Frobisher and the Doctor in the same room at the same time?? *nods sagely*

I'm still trying to remember what that characteristic i that I read breeders breed into pets that makes them look far more like their immature/baby/puppy version than the mature version originally did.

Neoteny.

THanks for that. I think I came across a short article on the neotenic effect somewhere a bit before Carla turned up and she's reminded me of it ever since.

Enjoyed that quite a bit, but Capaldi is doing so much of the heavy lifting he must look like fucking Popeye with his shirt off.

Can't help thinking the name the Doctor chose for the Dalek wasn't a coincidence, and every time he used it it sounded like he was calling the Dalek a cunt. Or maybe that's just me.

Yeah, there's no way that was a coincidence.

I felt like there wasn't much tension, but Dr Who does dark Inner Space worked for me.

yeah. the strong points of this were slightly strange - and tension wasn't a strong point.

pictorial overlays of the doctor standing in front of a giant dalek eye while the universe was consumed and born in fire.

hallucinogenic warping of body shape as they went into the eye.

dalek stands in judgment of doctor.

doctor goodbye = muttering to himself as he slips out of the door (like the bit were he crept away furtively, with an expression almost of cowardice, from the soldier being attacked by the antibodies.)

aldo's point about the heavy lifting dead on tho. capaldi almost knocking out the balance of the show.

the laser guns were about as meaningfully effective in terms of excitement as they were in terms of killing daleks.

I thought this was okay, but it felt like a retread of "Dalek" from the first reason, right down to the Doctor's own morality being questioned. Didn't the Dalek in that episode also say "you're a good Dalek" to Eccleston?

A lot of things in this ep just didn't make sense to me... Like, why did they go inside Rusty in the first place? To determine how it became "good"? Couldn't they have just scanned its memory or something? The Doctor seems to know how dangerous it is inside, yet he's a-okay with this plan that might get them all killed? Why do the soldiers, who seem otherwise quite sensible and cautious, even suggest the plan in the first place? What do they even stand to gain to it? Okay, later on the Doctor says that maybe he can make all Daleks good, but that justification was only given after the fact.

Also, the Rusty just handily destroying all the other Daleks without them managing to fire a single shot at it felt way too convenient. And what's up with the Doctor's weird anti-soldier stance w/r/t refusing to take Journey with them? He's okay with hanging out with Rory the killer automaton, River the genetically engineered assassin, and Vastra the human-eating vigilante, but this seemingly decent person being a soldier is too much for him? I don't get it. Journey even proved she's not just following orders blindly, if that's what the Doctor is against, when she didn't blow them all up inside the Dalek.

really enjoyed that v much. emil.y & fizzles otm, basically everything that was consciousness-raising/warping acid trip inside analogue dalek body/mind was a++++. Hoping for a series full of stoner ethics chat + cool stuff to look at. And yeah, Capaldi hauling everything to the next level.

xp

yeah there were big holes in it I think. Is it setting up a DOCTOR/TEACHER/SOLDIER thing that'll run through? That's what it felt like. But internal plot-logic a bit frayed tbh.

They were definitely juxtaposing Danny Pink with the soldiers of the future. In the beginning of the ep Clara dismisses his soldier career almost as cruelly as Doctor does with Journey, but in the end she has learned her lesson (probably by watching that one soldier sacrificer herself for the rest of them), while the Doctor still hasn't.

Even though this time around they're emphasising that the Doctor is the same person, each Doctor does have a different set of personality traits, so I'm not sure I'd counterpoint the soldier-rejection now with previous companions.

I guess I could've accepted it if, you know, they'd given some explanation for why the Doctor doesn't like soldiers in particular. But they didn't.

Agreed that this felt way too close to the Ecclestone Dalek ep. Wasn't that one also the second after the introduction? It must be a contract obligation thing with Nation, right? Maybe they're just getting it out of the way early.

I'm watching how they're handling The Colin Baker Problem, which is that when they introduce an intentionally abrasive doctor to create contrast, they end up alienating the audience. I'm liking the moments of vulnerability ('please see me'/'am I a good man') but they seem unearned and come out of nowhere. (Capaldi is borrowing some of Tom Baker's jauntiness to relieve the tension but he's still closer to Colin or McCoy, I'm thinking, maybe.)

Capaldi's delivery for just about anything especially the Clara-baiting banter is hilarious ('well you don't look it! ... that's right, keep your spirits up')

The soldier theme is interesting, he's always had contempt for functionaries, bureaucrats, military types, we used to see this a lot with Tennant and going all the way back to Troughton - but they're really trying to make it A Thing, I don't think it's just a one-off for this ep. I'm not sure exactly where they're going with it. Agreed with Tuomas that this is not really convincing at the moment but if it's a themed arc maybe it'll congeal.

Nope, not the second ep, the sixth. Set in the futuristic year of 2012

I was lukewarm in this at first but I got well into it once it got going

The soul-mindmeld & reviving the memories was pretty good, def Ecclestonian as noted upthread but I don't think it stepped on that episode THAT much, did it? idk, my memory is shit so i am prob wrong (cue
"sic-ipedia" with detailed notes lol)

Capaldi bringing good grouchy intensity! honestly I get a little bit of Hartnell from him, ie there's no TIME for niceties ughhh grump grump

I guess I could've accepted it if, you know, they'd given some explanation for why the Doctor doesn't like soldiers in particular. But they didn't.

soldier rejection a rejection of himself (hence it's slightly willed and stubborn aspect) because if I'm remembering rightly Matt Smith was often described by others as a soldier (even as far back as the Tennant/Moffat Library double ep). fits in with a lot of the "I will not be that man again" existential stuff capaldi is going thru.

like emil.y I have no prob with this.

also war doctor was basically a soldier, no?

I thought the rejection of Journey Blue (or is it vice versa?)as a soldier might be a pelude to that actress returning as a non-soldier, maybe an alternative world version of the same character or something. But that might be rendered unlikely if Clara has already used that alternative selfs dispersed across time thing.

I wonder if that actress would make a good companion. I've enjoyed her in other things.

soldier rejection a rejection of himself (hence it's slightly willed and stubborn aspect) because if I'm remembering rightly Matt Smith was often described by others as a soldier (even as far back as the Tennant/Moffat Library double ep). fits in with a lot of the "I will not be that man again" existential stuff capaldi is going thru.

yeah I agree with this. They played with this idea a lot with 11 - "A Good Man Goes to War", the whole Doctor/Nurse/Soldier thing with Rory/Strax, the war doctor.

Looks like they've taken the criticisms about Clara's character being underdeveloped to heart - I like the renewed focus on her life on Earth, even if it does feel like they're overcompensating a bit.

I recognised the similarity with Ecclestone's 'Dalek' (though technically this still wasn't a good dalek so that isn't soooo much of an issue, still a little off, though), but also was going hey! Clara's already been inside a dalek - I mean, fair enough that she wouldn't know, as it wasn't actually Clara, but the Doctor doesn't remember that?

I wondered about that too - thought there would be a mention about how the last time he met a good Dalek, it turned out to be Clara. I still wish he had taken the Dalek Souffle version of her as a companion tbh.

I enjoyed that one a lot, the Dalek antibodies were my favourite bit. Capaldi really is excellent, given that Ecclestone was up til now my favourite nu-Who Doctor, I think I just like him to have a bit of gravitas.

Suspect that the Doctor isn't going to take to Clara's new boyfriend particularly well, but I'm enjoying the moral ambiguities at play here.

I also like it when the Doctor's a bit of a dick and Capaldi is extremely good at being a dick.

The main plot felt a bit rushed and slightly nonsensical in places, but enjoyed it overall. Capaldi's shaping up very nicely, particularly liked him getting Vod off Fresh Meat to say 'please', and his rudely abrupt farewell. I really enjoyed the Clara and Danny stuff - nicely written and well-paced.

I'm watching how they're handling The Colin Baker Problem, which is that when they introduce an intentionally abrasive doctor to create contrast, they end up alienating the audience.

Hopefully they will simply avoid this by Capaldi being a better actor and having better writers.

but also was going hey! Clara's already been inside a dalek - I mean, fair enough that she wouldn't know, as it wasn't actually Clara, but the Doctor doesn't remember that?

http://media.aintitcool.com/coolproduction/ckeditor_assets/pictures/5252/original/doclek.png?1327684145

I haven't heard how this series is shaped yet. Is it back to a straight 12 consecutive week series? Matt Smiths last ones messed around with that didn't they? Called it series 7 but had a several month interval or something

Should be 12 eps, straight through

Hopefully they will simply avoid this by Capaldi being a better actor and having better writers.

Ha too right (but I enjoy thinking about this from a writer/producers POV)

no breaks, x-mas special, and clara leaves, apparently, during the special.

THE DEBIGULATOR WORKED!

(and the rebigulator too obv)

no breaks, x-mas special, and clara leaves, apparently, during the special.

stfu

Man i wanna like this so badly, but its pretty dumb unfortunately.
Rewatched the first two seasons of the thick of it tonight instead

what's dumb?

Has a companion ever slapped the Doctor before?

shd do story were doctor who turns bad

This started out as the best nu-Who Dalek episode, low bar I know. It did descend into a pretty typical Dalek episode with lots of explosions, but at least they kept the cgi swarms of dalekss down to a minimum. Capaldi is working out well, I hope they can maintain the unpredictability.

This started out as the best nu-Who Dalek episode

Nah, this is clearly 'Dalek', pretty unimpeachably so.

Yeah, I agree, though the Dalek-Clara ep was pretty good though. I'm only familiar with the nu-Who, so I've no emotional attachment to the Daleks, and most of the episodes featuring them have been pretty meh. I think the basic concept of the Dalkes is pretty cool and can be properly terrifying (as seen in "Dalek", where one single Dalek was enough to make everyone piss their pants), but they keep adding all this extra elements to them that just aren't that interesting. I'm not interested in some goofy-looking Human/Dalek hybrids, or some pathetic old geezer in a wheelchair who created them, these things just take away from the simple existential horror of the core Dalek concept. Maybe the writers think that old-Who fans need this extra shit, because the basic Dalek stories have already been told, but I'd choose the simplicity of "Dalek" over the ludicrousness of "Daleks Take Manhattan" anytime.

I like davros! Basically the only Dalek stories since the first one to do anything particularly interesting with them are 'genesis' and 'dalek', maybe 'rememberence', though it's been a long time since I've seen that one. They're better as a general ongoing background threat than they are as villain of the week.

Oh I think 'power of the daleks' has a very good rep, but I can't be bothered to sit through audio-only lost serials.

some pathetic old geezer in a wheelchair who created them

Said pathetic old geezer has been part of the series since 1975, in fact in all the dalek stories after he was introduced until 'Dalek'. And had his own series of BF.

It's interesting that you think Dalek is the modern one, because it was adapted from a BF audio which is surely the very textbook definition of "old-Who fans extra shit". Rusty in particular has made clear all the extra bits need added on because it's what TV is supposed to look like these days (post-Buffy). HOOT!

I'm also not sure what exactly you think the core dalek concept is.

Personally, I like to think of them as conscripts - forced into the suit and with vision and weapons grafted on (possibly giving them an electric shock when they use them), they're in a permanent state of panic which is why they're always shouting (and why they join chants with each other) and also why they get into extreme states when their vision is impaired; this has caused them to die of fright in the past.

That's an interesting if idiosyncratic take on the Daleks! I thought the core concept was they're horrible and they want to kill everything.

I wouldn't say it's that strange a take on daleks - they are vulnerable organic creatures inside the metallic killing machines, and they are creations of a mad dictator (I'd say this is a reasonable characterisation of Davros), which means they're not necessarily evil but contingently so. This clearly has symbolic power over and above "unstoppable and unmitigated evil".

Oh I'm down with Aldo's interperatation, just hadn't really occurred to me.

No, they were an attempt to break the deadlock in the thousand year war against the Thals by creating a battle suit which would not tire. The Kaleds were then mutated to fit the suit and to take all sustenance required from it. It was established in Remembrance (? might have been Revelation) that the two dalek faction are completely different types of mutants - one is the green jelly seen in Resurrection and one is the crab-clawed thing seen in The Daleks.

It could be argued (but I haven't thought it through to closely, because I've only just come up with it) that the Daleks would never have been such ruthless killers and had such a bent for galactic conquest had the Fourth Doctor not made his 'bacteria' speech and given Davros the idea to destroy the galaxy.

You'd think Doctor Ten and his guilty feet could have had a two-parter moping about how he did that back when he had curly hair. Frankly, Rusty could have got a whole spin-off series out of it.

established in Remembrance (? might have been Revelation) that the two dalek faction are completely different types of mutants - one is the green jelly seen in Resurrection and one is the crab-clawed thing seen in The Daleks.

"Daleks are blobs. Imperial Daleks are bionic blobs with bits on.”

what's dumb?
― boney tassel (sic)

I think that's nostalgia speaking.

banging head on desk scene made me think that moffatt was trying to revisit Coupling and Chalk simultaneously.

"is ross in here?"
"top layer if you want to say a few words"

Good grief that was a massive improvement on last week's episode, maybe even the whole last series. Better story, performances, direction - even Clara struggling with a bunch of plastic corrugated tubes wasn't the risible moment it could have been.

It was clunky but I liked the whole soldier/doctor good/bad themewankery. And Capaldi finally did something that made me think, "Yep, Matt Smith couldn't do that."

Also, Vod is such a natural fit for a companion, I hope she comes back.

"finally"?

be awesome, you mean?

I thought he was a bit boring in the debut episode. A bit too much "me crazy" acting - like Matt Smith in Nightmare in Silver. But he was great this week. And it seemed like he had a specific idea about the character, rather than a random grab bag of "this could work" business

Before Capaldi was announced, Zawe Ashton won the poll the Guardian did for 'new/first female Doctor'.

See, dalek conversation here is interesting because as far as I can tell they could be contingently evil or inherently evil, and you never quite know

I thought this was a really good episode with science fiction elements played just seriously enough to do what they needed to do, make a tense story that worked

First episode was crap, all kids know you don't just use a dinosaur in victorian london as a macguffin

I thought he was a bit boring in the debut episode. A bit too much "me crazy" acting - like Matt Smith in Nightmare in Silver. But he was great this week. And it seemed like he had a specific idea about the character, rather than a random grab bag of "this could work" business

Okay but you're acting like the debut was five episodes ago instead of last week

Doc Who like the NFL in that respect

the writing and the plotting? the mr. pink school sequence looked like it was written by someone who has not only never been in a classroom but by someone who has never met a woman before. i am willing to acknowledge this may be my fault if it's a matter of turning off an inner critic but the eccleston / tennant years (while often doofusy) didn't feel as relentlessly dumb as these two eps already have.

Let me check here: in a story where a 2,000 year old time-travelling alien with a spaceship that’s infinitely bigger on the inside, and a school teacher, and a bunch of future space soldiers get shrunk down to miniature, and walk through a psychedelic portal into the combination battletank/life support for a brewed-in-a-vat mutant blob descendent of the mutant blob survivors of a nuclear war, and convert it from fascist hatred to remorse by crawling around on it’s memory to remind it of how pretty explosions are when they’re really big ---

--- you’re put off by a brief scene in a 2014 Earth school not being written with 100% documentary realism?

The scene was written by someone who went from being a school teacher directly to writing every episode of an internationally successful five-year series about school characters, set in a school – sometimes he made them a bit snappier, a bit sassier, or heightened and condensed their emotional reactions, for comedy or dramatic effect. The school scene here seemed more flatly, more openly played than that. Dude also went on to write every episode of a little-seen two-year sit-trag, and then every episode of a four-year hit series sitcom, about men sometimes having difficulty communicating to women, with comedic and farcical consequences. This scene showed a dude not quite communicating his interest to a woman, to the amusement of both her and us – it doesn’t seem like a plotting flaw. It also managed to show that Danny Pink has been unattached for a while, is interested in Clara, is sublimating his need for communication and to be vulnerable into work, that he probably has some degree of PTSD after killing a female non-combatant in a war and is trying to atone for it, and that these things are likely to affect the way the two characters relate in upcoming episodes. In plotting terms, it’s doing a pretty hefty job of heavy lifting in a very short amount of screen time.

By “never met a woman before” do you specifically mean that Clara wouldn’t respond to his awkward embarrassment at her invitation by following up to see what was up, because no woman would ever pursue a man who seems to be interested but shy, or...?

(nb I've never seen Chalk)

wait where did "female non-combatant" come from

Someone (Clara?) called him a "lady killer" - like sic I think that was a pointer to a future reveal about what makes him cry.

It was the headmaster

the noncombatant bit comes from the student asking him if he's ever killed anyone who wasn't a soldier. "ladykiller" sequence follows less than a minute later. it's a deliberate hint, even if it turns out to be a feint later.

Yes the non-combatant part was pretty explicit, what with the lingering tear etc. I was questioning the female part, which makes logical sense but will make me roll my eyes so hard from a storytelling standpoint.

I disagree that the school scenes were particularly bad, but I do think that it's valid to take issue with a present-day real-life section of an otherwise fantasy text. There are lines where you draw your suspension of disbelief: frequently these come where fantasies contradict their own internal logic, and part of Dr Who's logic is that there is a contemporaneous real world that matches our own, and that humans behave in a human manner. If someone feels that the representation of those are shit, then it's perfectly reasonable for them to complain about it.

Though as I say, I thought those scenes were fine.

Yeah they were good. Efficient storytelling, as sic was saying, without seeming rushed. And certainly no more unbelievable than your standard non-SF drama.

The thing that rang false to me was his reaction to the kid's question and Clara's teasing, mostly due to a conversation I had a few weeks ago with a vet who served in Afghanistan about how off-putting and stupid he finds the "did you ever kill anyone" question. I'm sure there are people out there who would react to Clara's borderline-cruel glibness with concern that the students were telling everyone he cried in class but I didn't buy that he would walk away from the conversation still interested in her.

(Like, it would have made more sense to me for him to have brushed her off after her jibe, her to go through the adventure and get to know and relate to Journey, then come back with an apology that led to a reconciliation and a date.)

Presumably he realises she has no idea what he's upset about because she doesn't know anything about his background except for soldier -> teacher, so there's no hint of cruelness at all, and he's only bringing his own sensitivity and baggage to the fore, and doesn't hold it against her

Though he does against himself

(wait which jibe?)

I do think that it's valid to take issue with a present-day real-life section of an otherwise fantasy text. There are lines where you draw your suspension of disbelief

absolutely, but it's literally the only thing forks cites as example of the "writing and plotting" of the episode being "relentlessly dumb"

oh right: "What, shoot people then cry about it afterwards?" Yes, but I think this is deliberately telling us about his character that he takes this so internalised, both in the moment and the aftermath, instead of coldly but politely putting her down, or lashing out at her unthinkingness. She's a dick, but doesn't mean to be; he'd be justifed in writing her off, but it tells us about his personal sensitivity and his empathy that he doesn't.

I think it's closer to "she's a dick without thinking about it" because I really don't think as an adult that you can say something like that without even entertaining the possibility that someone might find it incredibly dickish; possibly this is going to be something that the 12/Clara interaction is going to expose in her personality as something to work on/through?

I didn't think it was a huge problem, but I didn't quite buy it: (previous) DJP post otm, basically - I wasn't really convinced by how quickly he gathers himself to spot that Clara's comment was glib bantz rather than cruel, informed mockery.

she immediately realises she's said something over the line and upset him, which is important to his forgiving/accepting the accidental/unthinking nature of it.

but also notable that she realises this from reading his reaction, she still doesn't process her actual words and work out the degree of the offence, or possibly *why* it caused that reaction

fair point

honestly I thought this was well-acted, I just didn't buy the baseline sequence of events given an rather illuminating IRL conversation I had a couple of weeks ago

(it's kind of sad that I am having problems remembering that Danny's name is Danny)

Maybe if his surname started with a P...

hee hee

yeah, I like Danny, like the actor, but was just a bit unpersuaded by the rapidity of movement from mock-my-tears to go-for-a-drink.

I thought this was alright. Not as good as a second episode should have been though; the premise seemed a bit cheesy. Actors all comporting themselves well though

Apparently Dalek: Fantastic Voyage hadn't been done yet. Liked this episode a lot and agreed - big improvement on the pilot. I like the axis of imperial grumpy Doctors so Capaldi is A+. I'll even sit through the customary medieval times episode next week.

There's never been a Medieval episode in nu-Who, though, or has there? They've been to the Shakespeare/Elizabeth I era, and Ancient Rome, but nowhere in between.

Personally, I've always loved odd revisionist interpretations of the Robin Hood legend, so I can't wait for this one. I even liked the Star Trek TNG episode where Q turned the Enterprise crew members into Robin Hood' Merry Men.

last time they went inside the Doctor's own head to cure a virus:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bYKTq2_CkHg/UiBcMmI318I/AAAAAAAABWk/wZSKI1yyLU8/s1600/vlcsnap-2013-08-30-17h25m05s38.jpg

(next week's is by Gatiss and has had appalling reviews btw)

Second episode in the series is usually some tossed off formulaic romp so actually this was quite a step up.

xp These appalling Gatiss reviews? Most I've seen suggest this one's actually really funny and really good.

gatiss has pretty much always been A+ for me

Blimey, does Ben Miller look like Anthony Ainley in that trailer or what?

i spect this has been observed before… caecilius-face choice - the dad in the family he saved from vesuvius. when Donna had pleaded and he'd initially said no way, he couldn't go back and save the timelords, so he couldn't save vesuvians (?). but he did, he saved caecilius. and later he discovers the time lords were merely lost, and then after a millennium long siege they manage to grant him a new face, and he takes this one. this is all leading back to gallifrey innit :-(

I was wondering what the story was on Gallifrey I thought he was coming aboard as the Doctor had an existing task of finding the hidden world after the anniversary episode.

Personally, I've always loved odd revisionist interpretations of the Robin Hood legend, so I can't wait for this one. I even liked the Star Trek TNG episode where Q turned the Enterprise crew members into Robin Hood' Merry Men.

― Tuomas, Wednesday, September 3, 2014 7:39 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm surprised not to see a mention of men in tights here, tuomas!

I must protest. I am NOT a Merry man!

Lol.

rubbish nerdy observation #52,431,113, the main 'medieval' old who story I recall is the Time Warrior (1st Sontaran and Sarah Jane story I think) which included in the cast Jeremy Bulloch, aka the dude who played Boba Fett (originally) but who also happened to be a main recurring character in lovely 80s show Robin of Sherwood (Ed of Whickham)

If the robot from E1 jumped rather than being pushed then that means that so far, the people who've been picked up by Missy aren't just people who died around the Doctor, they're people who've been talked into killing themselves by him.

The soldier in "Into the Dalek" wasn't talked into killing herself by the Doctor, though, or was she? Didn't she herself suggest she would hold off the robot antibodies so the others could get away?

I was wondering what the story was on Gallifrey I thought he was coming aboard as the Doctor had an existing task of finding the hidden world after the anniversary episode.

I've been wondering about this too... The monologue at the end of the 50th anniversary episode made it sound like finding Gallifrey was now the Doctor's number one task, and Smith's final episode confirmed the Time Lords are indeed alive somewhere, but the whole thing hasn't been mentioned since. Are we to assume the regeneration made the Doctor forget about Gallifrey? And that he chose the current face he has so that he would remember it (as per Alan's theory above)?

Didn't she herself suggest she would hold off the robot antibodies

She suggested it but then wanted confirmation it was the right thing to do etc, and the Doctor gave her that confirmation. So maybe not "talked into suicide" but "encouraged to sacrifice".

i recall rustie (not the dalek) saying he had a master plan for bringing back a big old who thing each season. season 1 = daleks, 2 = cybermen, 3 = master, 4 = davros. a sort of slow repressurisation of continuity. moffat's grand plans have (to date) been more about inducing the continuity bends, rebooted universes, backwards-in-time wives, an always-there-all-along guardian angel, Dalek's "Doctor" amnesia. But now maybe he's back on that original plan, bring something back, the one thing rustie took away and seemed never wanted to bring back.

hey maybe Missy is Romana gone mad. (I expect this has been suggested many times already just for LOLs anyway. "Hey maybe she's Leela when she learned to regenerate or suttin")

Lalla Ward got fed up being married to that awful gobshite Richard Dawkins and regenerated into Missy, that's my theory.

Moffat said the Gallifrey thing would just be there in the background. It would be daft to reveal it already... don't forget we had Gallifrey sending regenerations through the crack in the universe in the Christmas episode... that gap's closed now. But there may well be some funny Gallifreyan business going on, forces which will emerge as the season goes on. All speculation of course.

Has Moffat given any indication of how long he plans to stay on as head writer?

He's certainly on board for Season 9 having talked about a cliffhanger, but beyond that, it looks unlikely he'll stay on.

It's an absurdly tough gig and he's not the most thick-skinned guy so I can see him leaving before too long, especially has the success of Sherlock proves he doesn't need Who. I really hate the Moffat-must-go crew though. I don't like everything he does but on balance it's a remarkable achievement under unbelievable pressure and there are only a handful of writers in the world who could handle that show.

Smith's final episode confirmed the Time Lords are indeed alive somewhere, but the whole thing hasn't been mentioned since.

You seem to have missed the entire next episode, in which he found Gallifrey and the Time Lords gifted him an entire new regeneration cycle.

whoops, as Stew says

He's lost it again though, so I'm sure it's something that will come back up at some point.

Smith's final episode confirmed the Time Lords are indeed alive somewhere, but the whole thing hasn't been mentioned since.

You seem to have missed the entire next episode, in which he found Gallifrey and the Time Lords gifted him an entire new regeneration cycle.

Er, that episode was exactly the one I was talking about when I said "Smith's last episode". And he didn't really find Gallifrey, he just got the confirmation that they are alive somewhere (though presumably still within the stasis field the Doctor put them in the previous ep), on the other side of the crack. Presumably he still want to find them and release them of the stasis?

I bloody hope not

Quite funny, rubbish plot.

Oh right you guys have seen this one already (hides from thread for 24 hours)

SPOILERS: The Doctor wins.

goddamn timetravelling euros

*covers eyes & ears, backs out of thread*

Is it shown on Sundays in the former colonies?

saturday night in the US

This is interesting - a certain scene was cut for broadcast (I don't want to spoil anything; the workprints of the first 5 eps have been online for a while in case you'd like to check out what was removed). At some point we can talk about it I suppose

Loved this ep, very funny and Cap is marvelous in it

Though that bit with the arrow at the end made noooooooo sense

Yeah, this was just stupid. I liked the general idea (what if there was a man behind the legend of Robin Hood, just like the Doctor is a man but also a legend?), but the constant nudge-nudge wink-wink meta commentary was tiring (especially during the loooong ending speeches between Robin & Clara & the Doctor), the banter was uninspired and formulaic, and the plot conincidences were just too much (of course the woman the Doctor saved was Maid Marian, of course Robin used the trick from the Doctor to beat the sheriff, of course the gold arrow had just enough gold to get the spaceship to launch - though I don't understand why it still exploded?). So yeah, a good concept, but bad execution.

Also, the robots were kinda stupid if they allowed the ship to lauch without having enough gold for it to fly. You'd think there'd be some safety measures or something?

I can see what you're saying but I could watch those guys yell at each other in the cell for hours, I thought that was fantastic. The only part where I suspended Who-belief (which is kinda required since so much of Who is, well, predictable) to go WTF was that arrow bit. And like you say the entire ship thing which is totally nonsensical. I had to roll with it but it didn't feel great

Rewatching it how come he didn't look to see where the 'promised land' was if that was a programmed destination? Unless there is no physical location and more a goal

The whole thing was a goofy-ass romp and that's kinda the point.

Just rep-eat to-your-self it's just-a-show

Good advice!

This was better than most Gatiss stories because it was so much less ambitious. Enjoyable cobblers throughout. Robots so unmenacing that their threat can be deflected with a tea tray was pleasantly old-skool.

I've seen Capaldi's "this fucking guy" look a million times by this point but it really works as the Doctor.

Quite enjoyed that! Golden arrow was complete bollocks. Wish Capaldi had headbutted "Hoodie" in that first duel but the spoon was a great touch

v silly overall, but quite watchable

this skated over the usual pitfalls of the "celebrity historical" / "theme park Britain" episodes with charm until an atrocious burst of sub-RTD science

leaving the beheading in might have distracted from it at least

sub-Silver Nemesis, even

ICYMI:

https://i.imgflip.com/bveie.jpg

The golden arrow was some "Idiot Lantern"/"Fear Her"-level nonsense

Fortunately a lot of the rest of it was funny; this Doctor and Jack would be pretty hilarious to watch bounce off of each other.

the sheriff of nottingham actor was p good

Dug these last two eps. I'm in.

I don't go to Dr Who for realistic science

the only Who i've seen was the first couple eps of the Ecclestone variation and it was basically unforgivably corny

that is actually kind of true. I have a hard time returning to th Ecclestones because I find his scene chewing a bit much to take. I know he has people who love him and he deserves credit for making the show a success again but, a few episodes aside, I'm not a huge fan of season 1

ok this was the first one I did not fall asleep in and also it was lol
they get a million points for having (BBC kids' series) 'Maid Marion' R Hood on the computer screens as it was cycling through the legends of Hood

^^^
Ha, did not notice that. Extremely fond memories of that show.

i loved the arrow splitting joke

they get a million points for having (BBC kids' series) 'Maid Marion' R Hood on the computer screens as it was cycling through the legends of Hood

more points for including TV's first Robin Hood

http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/imageArchive/images/10301_gall_002.jpg

<3

they get a million points for having (BBC kids' series) 'Maid Marion' R Hood on the computer screens as it was cycling through the legends of Hood

Er I just rewatched that scene to check for it and this didn't happen? The only live action shot in there was one of Patrick Troughton as Robin Hood.

Oh xp

It was in the background. They had this image, twice
http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100723215015/maidmarianandhermerrymen/images/f/f9/Robin_Hood.jpg

(or similar)

episode had a third doctor kind of vibe

Quite enjoyed that! Golden arrow was complete bollocks. Wish Capaldi had headbutted "Hoodie" in that first duel but the spoon was a great touch

SPOILER: There is no spoon.

this was great but bruce mcculloch as robin hood was very distracting

episode had a third doctor kind of vibe

HAI!

Do you think the fourth episode will have a Fourth Doctor vibe?

that would be kind of amazing; it does look like it might hit some of the Holmes dread buttons

my only thought was oh great, don't open the door: add to don't blink, don't breathe etc

This was an excellent episode, best so far.

agreed - i like my who-pisodes unencumbered by the vast baggage of who-dom. i also like episodes that begin with sheer caprice i.e. "fuck it, let's go to sherwood forest in 1190 and see what happens"

This might have been better as a 20 minute Comic Relief special - the middle scenes were a lot of shouting in search of comedy. But overall it was a pretty charming episode - and the main conceit (the Doctor's quest to prove that Robi n Hood is a fictional character) might be the show's first genuinely original idea in a few seasons. (Although IIRC the Dracula episode of Buffy has a similar joke.)

Loved Capaldi in this, and basically how the Doctor didn't want to go along with anything in the episode (until he discovers that - yes - there are robots! phew)

They had a repeat of Pyramids of Mars on Watch last night, Four is incredibly grumpy and non-cooperative throughout that story. Wonder if that's where Capaldi got a lot of his cues from.

Pyramids of Mars has one of the most devastating scenes of the entire series, when Sarah insists that they can just leave because her existence shows the future is fine and the Doctor says "O RLY" and shows her a devastated Earth that exists because they just left

Yeah, it's full of great moments - pretty much perfect in fact except for the obligatory 'solve some quite easy puzzles in a maze' bit near the end. Now if someone could edit those bits out...

I would've liked it if the entire last episode had been a battle of wills between Sutekh and the Doc in his creepy lair.

Loved this (apart from the golden arrow spaceship exploding nonsense towards the end but w/e, it´d done enough that I went along with it). Dug the way it played around in the sunnier uplands of myth, good-looking robots and the laughs worked for me. & of course Capaldi. Felt like it hit the light-Buffy tone in places.
It´s almost making me nervous how much I´m enjoying this series - waiting for it to sink into a draggy confusing arc, or do something badly wrong. Looking at the Matt Smith eps poll, I was a bit disheartened - little there that I loved (much as I did like Smith as a doctor). This series feels much more like something I just do really want to watch.
(Fun to watch with kids. Maybe I would´ve been more groany if I were watching alone).

Are young kids taking to Capaldi's more difficult Doctor?

my kid loves him

I´m w/ stepkids who aren´t that young (12, 16 on Saturday) but they seem really into him. He´s funny! They like that. Slightly cruel sarcasm goes down a treat with a 12-y-o boy. The 16-y-o was unsure after the announcement - she did like Matt Smith, but Capaldi won her over quickly.

yeah he is funny and the sarcastic side I think appeals to the kinds of kids that like Doctor Who to begin with.