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

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.