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

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