Doctor Who The Second New Series (Season 28)

It will be a letdown if this episode isn't the greatest thing ever.

I already love this one.

Yeah, he played Rab, the footballer's-gay-bit-on-the-side ned with a heart and a brain - the Channel Four viewer's Rab C Nesbitt.

ihttp://images.gallifreyone.com/newsgraphics/newcybermen.jpg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/images/173/cyberman2006long.jpg

Excited about Doctor Who, by the way, blah di blah. The Cyberman looks a little too expressive, somehow.

This partly inspired by watching rerun of Dark Skies on ITV4.

That metal codpiece is GAGGING for an entirely predictable Captain Jack joke, it is...

I've always thought Cybermen were WAY scarier.

I'm not convinced this was really that much of an exclusive, I suspect it'll turn out to just be the pre-credits sequence from the next episode. I liked it though, and I liked Tennant.

Eccleston's Doctor was a bit manic as well at the start, and had similar issues with the way he looked (in Rose's house he was looking in the mirror and commenting on his big ears).

I like Tennant, and I think he'll be all right. Though seeing him playing with the Tardis, he did seem a bit like a kid in a sweetshop - he is a huge Doctor Who fan and basically became an actor because he wanted to grow up to be Doctor Who, so the manic glee probably wasn't all acting. I hope he does get over himself a bit in this respect, though maybe it's not that obvious to everyone.

(He's cute enough that I'm not really bothered.)

Absolutely OTM. I still enjoyed it, but was a little unsatisfying. It didn't half sound like DT was stifling 'fuck' rather than 'faster' though.

Thank you Tesco, my box set turned up this morning.

plus, as i think you pointed out before, he's known for playing manic characters (er, am thinking of the only other thing i remember seeing him in, the thing set in the asylum, possibly named after that Specials song).

the CiN thing was a bit nothingy. especially compared to the one Sylvester did (in 3d!) and the one Joanna Lumley did (which i don't think i ever saw).

Hmm. The "45 seconds" bit was funny, but is RTD getting a bit precious now?

You haters are all nuts! Although I'll admit that it was all a bit lame until the doctor woke up.

PS, Merry Christmas ILX!

Poor old Harriet…

But still, YAY Doctor Nindie! Do they keep the Death Star Torchwood domesday weapon hidden up Captain Jack's BUM?

Arf.

"Maybe I'm the kind of guy who presses a big button that clearly isn't supposed to be pressed?"

Oh, and

"Don't you think she's looking tired?" Six words to bring down a government, indeed.

Plus, new series trailers look awesome. I am officially excited (although perhaps not as much as I am by The Beginning box set in January).

I have to say, the new Doctor is very very cute.

Also while I like the idea that in Doctor Who world it's the UK that's had Roswell technology for years, it doesn't fit with teh real-world reference to The American President. Similarly the speech at the end where the Doctor tell the PM that there are a lot of aliens out there conflicts with all the "Martians look completely different" stuff.

I did like the Six Words as a comment on how a female PM would have a hard time against the forces of old Sexism and new Spin. But it seemed a little calculated for the Doctor.

the big fuck off to thatcher at the end

I missed this, what was it?

Sycorax rock: I was hoping this would be explained by the moustached guy explaining that he'd included a copy of 'Chinese Democracy' onboard Guinevere 1.

In love with blonde girl (not Billie).

Laughed loudest when the Sycorax chief said 'yes I know who you are' to PM Jones.

And as such, it was damn good. Tennant laid claim to being 'more than average' as the Doctor, we had a few obvious references (Thatcher and the Belgrano), some lovely asides (Arthur Dent in pajamas)and Billie is in it for at least one more series; cause enough for celebration!

And lest we forget (tip of the hat to aldo); Sarah Jane Smith, K9, and Cybermen - surely that is enough for anyone?

They did seem to go overboard with Hollywood references (Star Wars, Independence Day, maybe even Spartacus and Robin Hood? Sycorax guy even reminded me of the alien(s) in Enemy Mine) but it felt like a noticeably bigger budget so i guess they just wanted to show that off with the improved effects.

Tennant's accent is rubbish, whatever he's doing. Why can't he just speak in his normal accent? I found that too distracting, and came away with the distinct impression that I was missing Eccleston. But Tennant may grow on me - I hope so because I really like him usually.

Tennant well placed for the coming series, the lead in with his absence was splendidly timed as was the hint htat he was back on form seconds before he burst from the Tardis to TOTALLY TAKE CONTROL of everything. I didn't feel there was a wrong note in the whole thing, and certainly not from Tennant.

Anyway, SPINNING DEADLY CHRISTMAS TREE!

STOP PRESS: My sister has leant over the keyboard and insists I add that he's easy on the eye. So there.

ALL YOUR BASE, YOUR BASE, NOW BELONG TO US!!!!

I liked it for the most part. Not sure about Tennant but I'm rarely sure about Dr's as they're growing into the part. It was a bit predictable the whole "oh no, world in peril, have the Dr. out of comission" bit but perhaps it was homage. And too much teary Billie, make with more aliens and less emo please.

Very interesting - and important and suggestive - ending. Complicating the Doctor's role as "Earth's protector" is a really interesting direction to go in, and even if RTD can't plot a single episode he can do big overarching arcs very well.

don't like tennant, really, but it should be OK

Harriet Jones was a good character all along - she was the one telling Mr. President to fuck off, he wasn't her boss and she was not turning everything into a war.

I don't think her killing the aliens was even evil - I think it was a utilitarian good, that she honestly thought she was protecting her planet.

You're making less sense than usual.

I liked Harriet Jones, and still do, even though the Dr (and you) clearly think she's evil now.

"do you like thatcher?" was a variation on "do you like hitler?" and because h jones's strike was, apparently, supposed to echo thatcher's on the retreating belgrano during the falklands

"do you like hitler?" was to help explain "do you like thatcher?"

I'm not sure as to what Thatcher's logic (or indeed her general's/admiral's logic, as I'm sure it wasn't her that gave the direct order) was for the attack, but I think that Harriet Jones' logic was actually more sound - or at least more pragmatic.

Do you really not think that the Sycorax would not have come back the moment that the Doctor left?

So, clearly, they had no HONOUR and the Belgrano trick was actually justified.

And it was a satsuma!

the falklands war was 23 years ago

I didn't like the whole "let's wait for the Doctor to come and save us" aspect, I felt it was very un-Who, though possibly I'm just used to a more active Doctor. Is there a precedent for this sort of thing, then?

Penelope Wilton as "Harriet Jones - Prime Minister" is so good she should get a series of her own.

I didn't like the whole "let's wait for the Doctor to come and save us" aspect, I felt it was very un-Who, though possibly I'm just used to a more active Doctor. Is there a precedent for this sort of thing, then?

The first peter davidson story is similar, yeah - he's too ill to be much use for the first half of it. But then tegan and adric and clarissa (or whatever her name was) were much more proactive in trying to make him better than Rose and co were.

The Silurians

Erm, RJG, I can't remember how old I was during the Falklands, (sorry I was drunk and confusing young and old so don't pick on me) but also I was at the time living in a FOREIGN COUNTRY which didn't report much of anything about it except that it sort of happened.

I also thought it dragged, but more with the blubbering emotional Rose stuff, not with the aliens.

And yes, it did rather remind me a bit of Castrovalva, but then again, that was one of my favourite episodes ever. But it had The Master in it, and now the Dr. is so angsty about being the only Time Lord left (especially after they repeated the EarthDeath episode last night) I think he might even be relieved to see The Master turn up.

can't wait for the new series. there has been zero decent tv on over christmas apart from this!

Yeah, for MORONS! Because, it wasn't like there were "shooting stars" and they hadn't shot apart a fuck-off big spacecraft at all, oh no, no space debris at all.

The more I think about it, the more it annoyed me. It was a pandering-to-the-people-that-watch-anything-at-Christmas type thing - making them accept the soap-opera cheesiness of it as a stand-alone before launching it on a whole new prospective audience...

pabulum, really. fun though,

And you can't begrudge RTD for going all out for the bigger audience. What surprised me was just how much coverage Dr Who got this Christmas - Tenant and Piper on countless TV guide front pages, more attention than Who has ever got no? Presumably this helped attract a larger, wider audience.

The cheesy politics were not really any worse than what we had in 'Aliens Of London' anyway.

Mickey is a full-time companion during the next series

I'm not sure there's going to be one. Around the end of the last series RTD was talking about how it was a single word, which we'd already heard, and it was pretty obvious he was talking about Torchwood. But then he had his spin off series idea, which obviously soaked that up, so now torchwood is a bit more out in the open. I'm not convinced he'll bother to come up with anything to replace it.

Annoyed by: the overselling of Tennant, who is great and doesn't need to be hyped nearly so much. But maybe since it's a family show, like Davies says, you have to smooth over the transition to the new Dr for the kids by making it really fun for them.

Underrated actor: the guy who plays Mickey. I'm looking forward to him having more to do than moping after Rose though.

I think they've got enough on their hands with Cybermen, Sarah Jane, and K9 this season to bring back the Master. Classic Who overload. But I'm secretly hoping Mickey's the Master. Actually I'm hoping anyone's the Master just so we can have some Mastery goodness. Or evilness.

I like the fact that Tennant's Doctor comes across as more light-hearted and approachable than Ecclestone's but actually turns out to be a bigger bastard. Ecclestone's Doctor really didn't want to hurt anyone (Except the Dalek obv. And everyone wants to hurt them), whereas Tennant's Doctor gives you one chance and if you fuck it up, he'll have you. I get the impression he's got the potential to be almost as manipulative as the McCoy Doctor (As evinced by the "six words...")

We fell about at the "am I ginger" bit because he is TOTALLY ginger - I think he's dying it somewhat these days though. He should be a ginger Scottish doctor in a kilt, but I think Kate may just have exploded if that had been the case :)

Torchwood on BBC Three

Captain Jack gets his own show.

Torchwood will debut on BBC Three late next year. Created by Russell T Davies it stars John Barrowman as Captain Jack.

"Torchwood will be a dark, clever, wild, sexy, British crime/sci-fi paranoid thriller cop show with a sense of humour - the X Files meets This Life," says Russell T Davies.

"It's a renegade bunch of investigators charged by the British government to find alien technology that has fallen to Earth," BBC Three controller Stuart Murphy told The Independent.

The show will be set in Cardiff, and will be 13 45-minute episodes, transmitting between series of Doctor Who. Confirmed writers include Sapphire and Steel creator PJ Hammond.

slurp :-p

of course it should say "Confirmed writers include Midsomer Murders and The Bill script writer PJ Hammond"

Are we allowed spoilers here?

SLIGHT SPOILER

TV medium Derek Acorah appears as himself in the new series.

"I've just filmed Dr Who," he reveals. "It's a bit of a mickey-take. The Doctor finds that spirits and ghosts have invaded the whole of the galaxy, so he gets me along to see what we can do about it. It's only a small part, but there's a bit of fun to it. I'm there saying, `I might as well go now, they're all out there and I can't do anything about them. I'm redundant!'"

I believe the official version is that the London accent is just something he leeched from Rose duringt he confusion of regeneration, and not his 'proper' accent.

is it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/tardisodes/index.shtml

NOT LONG NOW!

David Tennant's shouty voice annoyed me again, though. Perhaps a salute to Al Pacino? I hope he keeps the Scots accent after next week.

Medical experiments on people, rather than medical experiments on animals ..... very au courant.

Yeah, lack of gravitas is pretty noticeable after Ecclestone -- although I thought Tennant was maybe less "smugly peeved" than "annoying teenager".

I liked the ending, though! (The Cassandra thing, not the "Everybody Lives!" bit. That was awful.)

What is The Face of Boe's purpose in the universe = this series Bad Wolf?

xpost

I didn't like the 'curing' sequence, too fast and straightforward. CGI 'healing' always looks shit.

I thought Tennant's 'gravita' was good at the end of The Christmas Invasion, but on the whole it's surely better that he's not too much like Ecclestone when it comes to that. Considering how jauntily the DR tends to go about saving the world etc., not that big a deal.

perhaps the cats pointing out that a billion people would live happily because a thousand were sacrificed

The Matron cat did do this though didn't she?

Surely if the Dr took Cassandra back to meet herself from the past he was breaking/changing the timeline? I suppose it didn't have any big repercussions so was okay.

No, it was part of the existing timeline. Cassandra said that party was the last time someone told her she was beautiful. But it turned out to be Cassandra/Chip herself that said it.

You wouldn't think sick people would be able to climb shaft ladders tho eh?

She started doing it, but she could have had a much better argument than she came out with, she said something similar and shorter but her point was nullified straight away by the Dr, so it ended up being worthless. And she also had a point when she asked who the Dr was to judge what life was worth, which she could have pressed on to make things more interesting (humans only thinking their species is the superior one because it's theirs, maybe the cat people did actually know better). Even with a couple of half-points the argument was over pretty quickly with the Dr obviously being in the right, which needn't have been the case.

Other than that, it seemed a riff on The End of the World. Apart form Cassandra and her robots, it also featured a variety of characters representing a species a piece, the fate of humanity and the innevitability of demise, for both peoples and individuals.

And now Doctor Who zombies! I know the Gelf were the walking dead, but they weren't there in these numbers, or going to make you one of them if they caught up with you. Well, a swiftly dying one of them.

All the doors opening at once to let them go was terrific.

When Cassandra kept popping from one host to another, wasn't that a little easy, given the equipment she needed to occupy Rose first off? The performances it generated were terrific value though.

Also new short episodes = about 5 minutes of zombies, which is too much/too little. We came up with about four better endings for the show.

The two Tennant episodes so far have suffered from being fairly straightforwards and unsubtle (in a bad way), with a twist at the end. I trust this won't continue (and the trailer reel in DR Who Confidential was brilliant!)

xxpost - actually I liked that line and it's delivery, though it's probably boring foreshadowing for this year's Emotional Arc or something. It's pretty much always been true, but it doesn't need to be said.

xpost - zombies also v. poorly thought out, both the transmission and the cure seemed very "we'll write something convincing later".

- And brilliantly reminiscent of Tomb of the Cybermen!

no WAY! she is aces. and billie being zoe being cassandra also fab. the episode as a whole was too pat though.

I thought Billie was terrific, and the bits where she was Billie acting Rose occupied by Cassandra trying to pretend to be Rose were great fun.

I was underwhelmed too though, for pretty much the same reasons as everyone else here who was. Unconvincing serious tennant, sloppy lazy plot, couple of painfully clunky moments, and a general lack of oomph.

Worrying that next week appears to be a potential retread of S27E2, the same way this week's was a kind of retread of S27E1.

Won't be able to really evaluate Tenant properly or compare to others until end of the series. A lot of people were and still are unsure about Eccleston but after watching episodes of the previous series all last week sometimes he seems like the best Doctor ever!

Billie as Cassandra is 7/10 for cleavage, but 2 or 3 for not making my toes curl. She'll be in panto soon enough, why hurry it?

I'm not sure this is a particularly good complaint, but there really wasn't any need for the cat nuns to be nuns, they'd have been more chilling (even more so) as regular neo-humans.

Yeah, but...they've all had their own distinctive ways of doing it, whereas this just felt a bit like ecclestone words coming out of tennant's mouth. I guess they're both just using RTD words though really, innit.

Also, cat people vs tree people: if Rose has already seen trees with mouths and faces and voices, x million years in the future, then she shouldn't really have been surprised to see cats pottering about on their hind legs and speaking English, x+z billion years later.

UK nova aren't carrying Dr Who this year, cos the DVD releases are coming so soon after the original broadcasts. Which is sensible of them. But it makes it a bit more of a pain in the arse to find decent hi-res torrents.

(xpost) I rewatched the Christmas ep yesterday, and that's still great, so I've still got plenty of hope wrt DT.

Oh yeah, I do. I forgot about the autons episode!

Better than the first couple of episodes of the last series. I think part of the problem with Tennant as Doctor (I am still convinced he will be good), is that he hasn't really had any time to bed into the role yet. Ecclestone and Billie had a lot of wondering around talking to one another time in the initial episodes, this one was a bit BASHBASHBASH all action.

Billie as Cassandra = great.
Tennant as Cassandra = fantastic.
Tennant doing emo/shouty = rub.
Face of Boe's secret = Timelords still alive somewhere. But yes, MORE FACE OF BOE!
Cat People = rub. But then again, as I realised yesterday evening, Daleks aside there were NO GOOD BADDIES AT ALL in the last series. The best episodes like The Empty Child and the one with Billie's dad had more of an abstract threat thing going on.

they said this last year too, hmm. anyway, you'll find them on m1n1n0va i'm sure.

I thought the Cat Nursies were good, nothing to object to here.

Duke Of Manhattan thing seemed a bit pointless though...for New New York they all spoke rather plummy English eh what.

Daleks aside there were NO GOOD BADDIES AT ALL in the last series.

they're staying faithful to the older seasons! Cybermen will probably be good tho. maybe they'll bring The Master back somehow.

I noticed this at some point in the last series actually, but I can't remember which episode. I think it was fairly near the end. Is it broadcast for 5.1 or something?

No news story about new episode leaking online this year? (I didn't look for it but perhaps security was much tighter this time)

DoM = new Moxx Of Balhoon?

funny that Mark Gatiss has replaced Simon Pegg as Dr Who Confidential narrator also.

which forthcoming episode is the Stephen Fry one again?

episode 11, known as 'Fear Her', so i see.

My first reaction to this was WHAT ABOUT THE EMPTY CHILD? But, you're right, not strictly a baddie.

for New New York they all spoke rather plummy English eh what.

Also, New New York has already been done in Futurama. Why didn't they just make it New London? Or even New Cardiff?

I don't get how anyone isn't in love with Rose. She might be the sexiest, most capable Companion ever, apart from the gorgeous Romana.

Yes .. Episode 11 now appears to have been written by Matthew Graham ('Life On Mars').

I am still looking forward to Tooth and Claw though. Just not sure about the Matrix-style wushu fight scene that's all.

It's the eyebrows - just not right.

Anyone else get the feeling the the Face of Boe having a deathbed/jar message to impart to an unspecified wanderer was a red herring? And that someone/thing else summoned the Doctor to Ward 26? Boe's far too obvious to be this season's Bad Wolf.

Ooh, I'm drunk!

I think there will be the occasional dangling plot hook for future episodes but maybe not an entire Bad Wolf style thread running through. Bear in mind though how little Ep1 last year had to do with anything that happened after!

I think this was more an episode 2 of the season - the Autons equivalent was the Christmas special. This would also tie in with JimD's series Tennant mirroring series Eccleston thesis (projecting a bit more than he's actually said here, I suppose) - the Christmas Special even had the same opening shot as Rose!

Basically, I'm asking how sensible it is to think "Well, Tennant's a bit ropy here, but it's early days, hopefully he'll settle into it"? Isn't it actually possible that this episode was filmed last, or something, and this is him already totally settled?

As for this series, I spoke to one of the actresses in the Peter Kay episode just after she had finshed it, and that was about a month ago. So a later episode was filmed later on. That's not much, sorry.

To be fair this episode didn't give him a lot to work with -- he came off as annoying because a lot of the lines were really annoying. RTD is a better showrunner for Doctor Who than he is as a writer for Doctor Who.

Okay, I am kind of scrolling through this thread to get an idea of what the second season is like without too many undue spoilers and this sentence alone tells me that someone, possibly RTD, is pandering to my amusement button.

but did you see the trailer on the bbc last night that spoilered the entire series? wtf?

I have never watched Dr Who before.

I would imagine these episodes were written before Chrissy E pulled out of the new series, they seemed to be quite surprised by his decision anyway. So perhaps that's why Davie T sounds like he's trying to do Chrissy E, rather than any inmability on the part of Russy TD (although I think he's a bit crap anyway).

I really enjoyed it, firstly for the Piper comedy which came off really well after the mush of the first five minutes. Davies is all connect the dots makes no sense plotting but then there were about five plots in here, all with massive holes (if teh zombies have all the illnesses evah, why do they all have the same symptoms / how is it cured so quickly). But I think Andrew Davies realises that part of Who is plot holes, adults don't really care and kids like to feel clever about them. More people should have died though, this is Doctor Who.

Still with the overbearing music mind. Wanted Chip to have a sidekick called Pin.

I thought Billie as Cassandra ("Oh god, I'm a CHAV!!!" - what, has no one complained about that yet?) was fantastic. Better than Tennant, at least. He just kind of leaves me cold. Can't put my finger on it, but maybe I'll warm up to him as I warmed to Ecclestone.

However, then again, anything with Zombies is always good.

We're not supposed to like Cassandra so that line was properly hilarious coming out of Billie - good taste sacrificed for camp, me no complain. Of course at the same time Billie/Cassandra eyeing up her own Chavbaps was the same thing so a millefeuille of levels of SOCIOANTHROPOLOGICAL FUN really.

I preferred far-future civilisations having a love and respect for the Golden Age of Earth (IE now), but getting them way wrong. "They called this... the iPod!"

This sort of thing pisses off the sci-fi heads, I'd guess, cos it's so ridiculous (it pisses off me, anyway). But I bet some kids absolutely lap it up, which is what RTD's aiming for I think.

It was handy that none of the universe's 1000 worst diseases were airborne, wasnt it!

I too was sad to hear that baby Boemina died before her father.

They missed a slight trick when Cassandra was in the Doctor's body with regards to regeneration, especially if she had realised that he could "become" a woman. You get the feeling Neil Tennant was a bit rushed when acting that stuff, probably because they spent longer on Rowdy Roddy Piper.

xpost you'll have to explain that Andrew Davies joke to us at some point, you know.

Pete is OTM about Zombie IT though.

plus you would think, as i said above, New New York would be well stocked up on nanogenes.

i don't think kids will care either way if it's the year 5000 or 5,000,000,000. when i was a kid anything post 2000 was super-futuristic - flying cars etc. and 2000 was so ubiquitous as symbolic of future/limits (e.g. 2000AD comic) though it is interesting to see how that has changed (assuming it has!).

But, standing at the level crossing in front of me this morning was a group of four 10-12 year old lads who clearly thought it was ace. They were doing impressions of the cat showing her claws, the zombies walking etc., so it's obviously hitting the mark there.

A plank in the Doctor Who mythos for children - will there be some who haven't heard of werewolves before this?

So that was why Tennant had a Scottish accent in the preview clips.

And Torchwood - why that name? Which was made up on the spot, like the institution. More than a century old!

Torchwood = anagram of Doctor who

Did seem a little crowbarred in, in retrospect. Although so many ideas happen for a few minutes a piece in new Who, you'd hardly notice. Which I like, on the whole.

So this years' theme seems to be that Dr + Rose larking about makes everyone distrust them, dot dot dot Torchwood. An institute of Mickey!

Surely monster's eye view + heroic sacrfice are Old Who cliches?

mandatory rockism: how well the monster looked was never the point (provided it wasn't actually as hilarious as Carnival of Monsters), keeping it off screen did most of the work.

I was wondering this morning whether there was a decent way they could record all CGI footage to film by camera (literally filming the CGI playing on another screen) in the hope it might look 'realer' still, then mixing that filmed footage in indirectly - so that like everything else it would be and would look 'filmed'. Sounds ridiculous and probably is but would be interested to see how it could look.

The slow-mo Matrixy monks action thing seemed a bit pointless at the start, considering the monks got to do bugger all else in the episode. I would've preferred this as a two-parter, so as to break the action up with more suspense (the wolf trying to get in the room was the best part) - they shoehorn in so much in 45 mins - although if Horror Of Fang Rock already did that then fair enough. Story good fun though. Esp. loved Queen Vic's refusal to let the Dr see her 'bite' - and her turning on him with the little speech at the end was cool.

Problem with Torchwood Institute is surely how it was kept secret/dormant for so long, unless I am stupid and it got amalgamated into UNIT, then to be revived by PM H Jones or perhaps one of her predecessors (members of UNIT being electrocuted by Slitheen in previous series might tie in with that).

But this Torchwood stuff is all a bit obvious so far really. I got quite excited by thinking there might be a bit more to Bad Wolf than we realised at the end of the last series. Mostly because Torchwood = triggered off by ACTUAL BAD WOLF!

Also the pre-wolf child in the cage recognised Rose as a (bad) wolf.

I'm getting really REALLY bored of the "coo, stuff is cool" schtick though. "a werewolf!" "i KNOW!!" *hug*

Yes .. Episode 11 now appears to have been written by Matthew Graham ('Life On Mars').

-- Si.C@rter (car[email protected]), April 16th, 2006.

Sigh.

However, this episode was tops! Kung Fu monks! Werewolves! Torchwood/Bad Wolf plot intrigue! Though I was kinda hoping that when Queen Vic was in the room with the monk she was gonna do some street-fighting and knock his block off. Scariness as well - if I was 11 and saw this, I would think it Best. Thing. Ever.

or something like that.

I didn't recognise Pauline Collins.

The "laugh at the royals" thing at the end was rub.

DT is getting better.

(um, http://www.baileykids.com/books/bsk2.htm. see also buffy fanfic: http://www.magma.ca/~kcurren/wolf's%20bane.htm (or rather, run away))

the Bad Wolf thing chalked on the playground at the end of last season was just about still visible in episode 1.

i've also been wondering about the torchwood point that stevem brought up, why haven't they used it against wurzel or the bloke who does the little britain voiceovers?

Doctor Who DVDs free in the sun all this week. 'Rose' today.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006180716,,00.html
"Also on offer this week are Day Of Armageddon, starring William Hartnell, tomorrow; The Faceless Ones, with Patrick Troughton, on Wednesday; Tom Baker’s Robots Of Death on Thursday; Spearhead From Space, starring Jon Pertwee, on Friday; and Earthshock, with Peter Davison, on Saturday." although they all seem to be part 1 only and are only available from certain newsagents or via mail. plus, you have to buy the sun.

(I also like the idea that Captain Jack might be a bit bitter towards the Doctor leaving him in the future).

I think clearly the current emotional arc is for Tennant & Billie to be having lots and lots of fun leading up to big emotional shockarc (my money is on death of Jackie). Also think how this may feel next week to Rose when she discovers Sarah-Jane, someone else who also had quite good fun with the Doctor. Will it completely change their relationship? It might.

speak for yourself...doesn't the Time War happen after McGann tho? whereas they now have to account for Torchwood clearly being a great big failure throughout the entire 20th century (i.e. failing to deal with the Dr or alien threats on their own). basically, everything is ruined and i can never watch agane!

Or that internal Torchwood policy vis-a-vis the Doctor has shifted from anti to tolerant back to anti again. Remember we've got an episode set in the 50s to come - it's possible this will fill in the continuity gaps, perhaps it had to go deeply covert for a few decades? (I kind of hope the 50s episode WONT do this btw)

Also remember that in the old UNIT stories the UK government is often infiltrated by aliums/the Master or is at least deeply reactionary and hostile to the Doc.

Or alternatively. why is the Pertweek Doctor tolerated by the (above-Brigadier) UNIT brass anyway? "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer"

And Sylvester McCoy...is doing the voiceover on the Sun ads.

a possibility. but in the sycorax thing it was anti-invading-aliens rather than anti-doctor - i don't think the current (fictional) policy is anti-doctor at all. he's like Godzilla.

Haha, they can spell it correctly on their website but not on the cover:

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b32/coltsigma79/sundvd.jpg

Anyway, Tooth And Claw...

It wasn't very good, was it? I certainly enjoyed it much less than last week's (which I really quite liked, despite the rehashing of Season 27 ideas in places) and had a pile of crappy ideas - Torchwood is a continuity nightmare waiting to happen, kung fu monks just PLAIN STUPID, shoehorned poor quality politicising... not to mention the whole thing about "first werewolf in Doctor Who". Has everybody suddenly forgotten about Mags in Greatest Show In The Galaxy?

Deer RTD you have turned into JNT even fasterer than sum of us thort yuo would can you go awai an give us our program bac kthxbi

I liked it lots more. But then I like plenty of JNT stuff, perhaps despite JNT.

er, does the word 'shaolin' mean nothing to you?

I can see what people mean about BBC idents, but an interview in Confidential made it clear it was inspired by Crouching Tiger and an attempt to make "the coolest pre-credits sequence ever".

(I'm 28, so there!)

Alex got in a fight with a boy at the park on Saturday afternoon about which of them was the bigger Doctor Who fan:

"I asked him if he'd seen the one where the daleks get made for the first time and he said he had and I asked which Doctor was it and he said Christopher Eccleston!" (We'd been watching Genesis that morning)

"I told him I'd had photo taken with Colin Baker and he just said who's Colin Baker!!!"

Ah, the joys of being 11.

I bet you think it wasn't a predator ship too.

I didn't like this week much more than last week. Continual "amused" gag was VERY irritating...by the end I was on Queenie's side, I just wanted them to stop farting around and get on with killing baddies. I hope that's what happens, soon. I don't want Dr Who to feel like hanging out with an in-jokey coupley couple, which it currently does.

The whole point of this ep, the "saving the world" aspect, was stopping the wolf from infecting the queen, right? But then we get to the end, and it turns out that maybe the wolf did get to her after all, and...doc and rose wander off making a bunch of weak jokes about it. Implication being: they don't care about saving the world, actually, they're just interested in saving their own arses these days. Intentional shift? Or just sloppy writing?

(other answer: The Doctor worked out that he had to do exactly what he did in order for the monarchy/empire to develop exactly how it was supposed to - i.e. controlled by shapeshifting lizards wolves *not* under the influence of crazy Scottish ninja monks)

(oh, and how did they actually get rid of all the monks who were armed and surrounding the building?)

Anyway I think you're right about this being a theme of the series.

I got a bit choked up when K-9 blew up as well.

If Mickey doesn't stop piling on the pies he'll be the face and arse and gut of Boe sooner rather than later.

This episode was ace, basically. Please can somebody just stop RTD from writing the actual episodes, so we can have more like this?

Lots of fun, I thought. Almost worth coming home for :).

Absolutely OTM!

I felt as the episode progressed that ASH's character was very much like The Master in his attempts at getting other species with more impressive physical powers than him to do what he wanted. And then in Confidential we get the revelation that he wasn't actually affected by the Krillitane oil, and that he might well have survived the explosion at the end. What were all those rumours before the series started again?

Can someone explain, for the benefit of us BLUDY KIDS what happened in the last Sarah-Jane/K-9 story?

Well, there was never a Sarah-Jane/K9 story as such in the 'classic' series (as the BBC choose to refer to it now).

At the end of The Hand Of Fear, the Doctor is summoned to Gallifrey (for the events of The Deadly Assassin) and drops Sarah-Jane off "in Croydon" (revealed tonight to actually be Aberdeen) because he can't take her. Only he sort of forgets to go back for her, possibly linked to picking up Leela in The Face Of Evil.

He clearly thinks of her though, because we discover in K9 & Company: A Girl's Best Friend that he left K9 Mk 3 with Sarah-Jane's Aunt Lavinia, for Sarah-Jane to have. (I actually really quite like K9&C, and think it's too harshly treated by fandom.)

We know he's still working at the time of the events of The Five Doctors, because he's in her front garden when she gets picked up by the Time Scoop in The Five Doctors. One can only assume after the events of that there's some sort of Gallifreyan mind-wipe (like the one at the end of the War Games) because she acted tonight like she hadn't met the Doctor again since the end of Hand Of Evil.

I liked the fact that they waited until they had the most babyfaced Doctor yet (well, with the possible exception of Peter Davison) to bring in a storyline about him having to go on alone after everyone else has died. It wouldn't have worked so well with an older Doctor.

I thought Sarah Jane was great. And more Tony Head can only be a good thing.

I am confused about K-9, because I have a memory of a programme all about him, whose title theme included the robotic words 'K-9' repeated. Does anyone else remember this? It would be c.1987 or so, perhaps. But this site - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-9_(Doctor_Who) - makes no mention of it, though it amuses me by saying that in book spin-offs 'K-9 is travelling alone, for reasons that are not explained'.

I can't believe I got so choked up at the end :(

where exactly was mickey when he was calling rose early on? and does his copy of the ascent of man mean anything?

This one's for the kids! They're going to love it.

No Mickey, you aren't even that useful. Poor Mickey :-(

I love David Tennant. This is all wrong.

"Fat" kid not allowed to eat BRANE CHIPS becoming Accidental Hero was a bit lame as well. Particularly as it made no sense whatsoever for BRANE CHIP eating kids to suddenly hate school ten minutes after being pleased about getting extra lessons.

Good to have K9 back, if only for one episode.

"Get the shooty doggy thing", "We are in a car" and "I'm the metal dog" - great lines.

Not sure about Mickey as a regular companion.

Sarah Jane is 58. That makes me feel old.

Smart money says he gets cybernetised.

I might watch the repeat though.

I do not know "Sarah Jane".

"Fat" kid not allowed to eat BRANE CHIPS becoming Accidental Hero was a bit lame as well. Particularly as it made no sense whatsoever for BRANE CHIP eating kids to suddenly hate school ten minutes after being pleased about getting extra lessons.

OTM this was rubbish really. i missed why Kenny wasn't allowed to eat the chips tho? i thought that girl was going to give him a peck on the cheek, or whatever the kids do these days.

You'll be delighted to know that, because of you, I spend all my time these days claiming that things are a load of rubbish.

Except Tennant as the Doctor. I like the fact that this incarnation is so young. I can't quite put my finger on why, I just do.

I once got told off at schoo for describing as book as a load of rubbish. Nice to see I've made so much progress since then.

Because he was fat, so he was supposed to be on a diet?

So RUBBISH is good, but there's something satisfying about sniffing heavily and dismissing things as "load of rubbish".

And yes, hooray for the fat kid. Who is, of course, more likely to be sitting at home watching Dr. Who on a Saturday.

Sorry, this was squirrelled away in a paragraph upthread and I thought it was worth pulling out.

Billie in a maid uniform

There. I've said it again.

Did you say Billie in a maid uniform?

You're telling me. Reading speed be damned!

Did I miss this bit :(

"Fat" kid not allowed to eat BRANE CHIPS becoming Accidental Hero

Fat Kid = The Young Russell T. Davies surely! 'cept i find out he didn't write this episode.

Setting a Dr. Who episode in a school = TEH GENIUS

http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fam/biog3/gray4a.jpg

Next week: Cybermen and their creator, Trig!

Nice to hear "bananas are good" again.

Tennant's wink whilst atop horse is irresistable.

Cybermen and Trigger, people! I hope he calls the Doctor Dave.

Last week, David T was home visiting his friends and he was in the pub next door to where I was at the same time as I was there. I didn't know this until the next day however. Bah. So close. I love how everyone in Paisley is kidding on like they've known him for years. I overheard someone telling someone else in the pub that his parents live next door to DT's parents in Paisley. DT's parents don't live in Paisley. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story though, eh?

"Why not? I let you keep Mickey"

and

"I am the King Of France!"

"I am the Lord of Time"

Just brilliant. The clockwork baddies had the face of every child's nightmare. Plus one of them was UNDER THE BED. arrgh.

My eight year old daughter (hiding her eyes when the robot monster came out from under the bed) said "If I was a little kid, I'd have nightmares about that". She's gone to bed now, but with the light on :)

However, my favourite part of the Dr Who evening came from 'Confidential'. Moffat saying (paraphrase) "The Madame De Pomapadour fans will be outraged as we all know that this is non-canonical - there is no evidence she ever kissed aliens" made my dinner leave my mouth and spray majestically across my living room.

villian looked a lot like V with the mask. as The Nipper pointed out, moffat has the kid's terror thing nailed with last season's gasmasks and now the monsters under the bed, and the ticking (which is always louder in the dark).

weren't those IT lessons though??? fraff around on computers = the best jolly in school!!!

Loved the Doctor wandering around the spaceship followed by a horse, but hated the scene of him jumping through the mirror on same horse. The stunt double was twice his size and the CGI was so bad it spoiled the lovely rescue for me.

Love clockwork baddies.

I like the romantic episodes, because I am romantic. Obviously Steven Moffat has been reading The Time Traveler's Wife recently.

The horse through the mirror was very Adam & the Ants.

Still not warming to Tennant and I thought I'd like him. But I miss Ecclestone already :(

Yes, because he's EMO DOCTOR! It's fairly evident that's what this entire season is going to be about (with added Torchwood admittedly). That's two episodes in a row addressing the Doctor going on alone while those around him die, and this will probably happen again when Mickey gets killed by Cybermen in a fortnight. I'll be amazed if we don't end up with at least the possibility of a revived race of Timelords by the end of the season.

I would have loved him to have kept the horse, though.

Didn't one of the last series' episodes imply that anyone who has been a companion could potentially regenerate?

Perhaps I liked it because the pace seemed to fit the story better this time. Less being chased by rubbish monsters, more Q&A with great monsters.

Didn't really understand why it had to be Mdm du Pompodour - because the spaceship was called that? WHY was the spaceship called that? Oh well, doesn't matter I spose.

Yes you're right, it doesn't matter. Why are ships ever named after 'real people' etc. Just be glad it wasn't the SS Maggie Thatcher - the Dr is!

Would defend the CGI - I thought they did a really good job of it. Especially after how they pointed out the logistical nightmare of the stunt in Confidential. A horse inside a stately home? No chance said the owner so they had to greenscreen it.

The only other thing that bothered me really was the droids inability to go ahead and cut people up - why so much hesitation just because someone starts talking?

Theme of this series has been nicely built now, the "isn't this fun" vs the "its got to end somehow", and the Doctor will get a new squeeze. Subtext being that the Doctor's enjoyment of his travels is through his companions, but that might get stale. He's allowed Mickey on board for more wonder, something to distract Rose who was getting a bit clingy? The payoff to the episode was obvious in a seven-year old working it out would feel really clever way. Moffat has to be first choice for taking over when RTD steps down.

How do we know he didn't keep the horse. Surely there are stables in the Tardis.

angles were all wrong on the mirror thing. you'd think they put the camera in exactly the same place and orientation relative to the mirror on the three different stages and then compositing them wouldn't be that difficult. but the final shot didn't seem that way to me. will have another look.

QFT

Of course thoroughly unclear why the materialised in the spacecraft in the first place, as it should be.

Fanwank answer - the TARDIS was attracted to the holes in time that the ship was opening up...

My wife didn't like this one. I loved it. I thought they hammered the emo home a little but this was the best season 2 yet, definitely.

And next week!!!!

Was there a Torchwood ref this week to go with the other recurring memes?

It makes sense too i.e.

Hartnell - omnipotent irascible baby
Troughton - hyperactive toddler
Pertwee - precocious swot at UNIT nursery school
Baker I - still precocious, but more boisterous
Davison - going through a quiet phase
Baker II - discovers and revels in ability to shock and annoy
McCoy - know-it-all pre-teen solipsist nerd
McGann - dreamy shy discovery of gurls
Eccleston - MOODY TEEN ALERT
Tennant - massive hormone rush including getting drunk, random snogs, absurd self-confidence, showing off about music taste, etc.

Is the Doctor just being 16?

The synopsis for Confidential after the second Cyberman episode reveals that it's a look back at Mickey "after his final episode".

The Doctor Who Annual last year has made it fairly clear that at least one other Time Lord has survived (there's a monument to the Time War on some planet and the Doctor comes across it, discovering someone has written "You are not alone" on it), hence all the Master speculation.

Anyway, another really good episode. And, tellingly, not written by RTD again.

What is the fanwank on Susan being his Grand-daughter? That suggests some sex somewhere.

Cos... I know!

well #6 did try and kill Peri didn't he?

i'm having trouble with Hartnell as baby tho.

Erm...

Tom B and Davison each had a story with just them and a male companion (tho with a gurl joining the crew at the end in Davison's case). And Ace was a tomboy!

Well you see in the OLD DAYS before the Pythia WITCH LADY cursed Gallifrey into PERMANENT STERILITY cos Rassilon wz getting a bit above himself and saing: GALLIFREYANGS! Sod all this believing in PAGANISM and MENSTRUAL RITES and stuff, look at this whizzo SCIENCE I am doing it is COOL and we will fite the PUKON - well, in those days, you see, there was a chap who's NAME HAS BEEN FORGOTTEN so now Gallifreyans just call him THE OTHER. He wz a scientist with Rassilon too! Just before the CURSE, he had kids, who had one more kid THE DAY BEFORE THE CURSE KICKED IN (apparently this also stopped Gallifreyan mass telepathy but this clearly is not HEM HEM canon as much as the rest).

ANYWAY this kid was SUSAN who acknowledged THE OTHER as her grandad. In order to get Gallifreyans breeding again, Rassilon makes the LOOMS which make new Time Lords from DNA GOO. Or something. In the meantime there = lots of WITCH vs PHYSICKISTS fites, and in DESPAIR at wot-he-hav-wrought/will-write (? grammer), THE OTHER throws himself into THE LOOM.

CUT TO!! William Hartnell is 300 or so and doddering round LUNGBARROW which is his house. Oh noes!! He gets framed for MURDER for some reason I cannot remember, and steals a TARDIS and goes on THE RUN, and finds Susan somewhere (who has been bought FORWARD by the Hand of Omega which is apparently SENTIENT TIME TRAVELLING CONCEPT ie primitive sort of TARDIS like IDEA?! I dunno) who sees THE DOCTOR. Gawsh! she say - "Grandfather"!

And it only turns out that some of THE OTHER'S DNA haf got into the DOCTOR, enuff to Susan to RECOGNISE him or something.

How this matches with the half human thing expounded in SOME AREAS I really must sa I hav no clue.

Tom's theory = clearly addled but Hartnell in TARDIS = baby in pram throwing toys out of the cot, where toys = rub companions and general GRUMPINESS. I wd say more like "terrible twos" if anythin'.

There is a big monster too but by the time you see it you are SO TRAUMATISED by the whole experience you do not give 1x FIG.

Keep watching http://www.livejournal.com/users/DIGGERDYDUM for the ULTIMA CANON (whenever I can remember to find the book I scribbled everything down in and bring it into work...)

I read she'd signed up for a third:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4858010.stm

The kids will love her.

that's why they were described as dumb robots innit! they're only made of clockwork!!!

"I'm always all right".

I loved it when she bamboozled Rose with her eloquence, too.

The horse was a lovely touch, reminded me of Lost. It's always good to have a magical horse randomly wandering about.

odd echoes of moffat's previous stories. bananas. doctor dancing. ticking despite broken clock v typing despite nobody at typewriter.

All this. Also, MASKS and the baddies not really being baddies, just confused automatons determinedly trying to fix something and going about it the wrong way.

I think they should let Moffatt write the whole thing. This and the gasmask story in the last season are by some distance the best things about nu-Who.

Indeed. But it is strange, to have his two stories being so close to one another, thematically and emotionally. They are wonderful, as highlights of series. Couldn't have them every week though.

Why not, I let you keep Mickey" was like something Ecclescake's Doctor would have said. I still don't have a proper feel of who Tennant's Doctor actually *is* yet.

I quite like that aspect of it. It fits with the whole process of regeneration as I like to understand it. Words sound different when delivered by different people, but underneath, it's still the Doctor. Then over time, his own self-perception feeds back into his personality and choice of words at about the same pace as... writers adjust to writing for him.

OMG OTM

Love the rubbish clockwork guys, stubbornly going round and getting everything wrong.

Also hooray, because it's the best thing Moffat's done since Press Gang, and draws a nice line over the eternally rub "Coupling."

I've been thinking about Coupling. I think I mainly didn't like it because that Welsh man and (especially) that blonde woman were so annoying. I'm not sure how much the scripts were to blame. It was all just played too smug.

What's the good side of smugness again?

crosspost

i stick up for smug (on ilx) because criticising something for being so is a massive dud. it's used in reflex here like a teen saying something is gay.

i agree with Alan re misguided overusage of 'smug'. most of the time it is a projection that is not backed up convincingly.

it seems to wrong to discuss these rubbish sitcoms on a Dr Who thread though.

crosspost yeah it is wrong really

Clunky but enjoyable would be my summary - still a bit disappointing because it's such a showcase episode and they're the Big Villains this season. But nice to see a proper carpet-chewing mad scientist in the show even if he is Davros really.

Robster OTM - with the screaming in the distance at the end.

I have just realised of course that this is the story directed by Graeme Harper, who 'helmed' loads of old skool Who, so of course it has some of that feel about it, though I couldn't point exactly to what directorial choices lead to that.

They lacked real menace here and I'm not sure about Lloyd-Pack either but perhaps he'll get a better chance to demonstrate evil mastermindery more convincingly next week.

One thing that bugs me about Cybermen design. The diagonal tapering of the face structure above the mouth area makes them almost look like they're smiling, whereas the classic 80s model had the 'sad mouth' but an overall blank expression.

It was all a bit 'oh, Trigger's gone mental', and in his first big scene I fancied I could see him reading his lines off a cue card or something. But boy, was I transported back to the terrors of my childhood when Jackie ran downstairs and you just saw that one cyberfoot on the stairs, coming after her.

Always after you. The cybermen. You can't stop them.

Mickey (or should I say Ricky) can't do mean very well, can he?

Trig was a bit rub, but hey ho.

You are all mad.

Behold:

http://www.rotten.com/library/culture/doctor-who/doctor-who-underpants.jpg

The death of the tardis was a really nice and scary idea, and it was a little bit disappointing that it all got sorted out relatively quickly (assuming it actually had, anyway). Also, Tennant still can't get angry very well...when he was doing all the "he's not your real dad!" stuff he was out of his depth, and I found myself missing ecclestone again.

But apart from minor gripes, this was a GREAT episode!

Confidential could've done a cybermen evolution thing but instead plumped for a fat boy slim montage that jumped backwards and forwards. cloth faces and voices like the robot from Fireball XL5 were good (Tenth Planet), as were the next generation (Tomb Of The...). the tom baker era cybermen with just cylindrical faces were also good. the new ones look like art deco skulls.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/gallery/cybermen/index.shtml

maybe they ditched the 'next week on' as it was a two parter? (oh, and curse the football btw)

Also it gave The Doctor problems because he didn't seem to know how to deal with them any more.

It was great, it seemed to be hammed up in the old style of Doctor Who, which is no bad thing.One thing that a colleague and I agree on is that Rose now needs to devlop from being the sort of assitant who runs around and get's into trouble to be the more knowing kind of assistant.

If next week really is Mickey's last ep, presumably parallel-Ricky will die, and Mickey will stay on Earth-2 to fite the revolution and be with his gran and stuff, as opposed to being cybernetized. Maybe?

During the president's face off with the baddies, I found it hard to stop being distracted by the fact that his right earpiece was falling out.

Poor Billie's complexion is a problem, isn't it? That HUGE spot under her left nostril this week...

Also Rose is getting increasingly cranky and I get the feeling she could come to hate the Doctor for a bit in this series.

What is the point of the zeppelins again? Oh yeah they look cool.

I hope the dead TARDIS sequence will have some bearing on the plot, either next week or in the other cyber-story - answering the qn of how/why they ended up on a parallel earth, for instance.

A few of the Cybermen must find a way back to Rose's universe with her and the Dr, somehow. revived TARDIS stowaway perhaps.

I watched this hepisode, it was quite good I thought especially at the beginning before the story really started and it was just a DYSTOPIAN VISION OF THE NIGHTMARE DOWNSIDE of the future in Peckham.

Maybe in this parallel world, 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' had been an even bigger hit or perhaps had been re-released and was #1 at the time the Dr and co. arrive in that London. After being on an advert or something. It really makes you think.

A theory = They are, as the line before said, calibrating. It's important to know, considering Tennant's shaky start so far, whether he can handle a speech like Ecclestone's "Let the TARDIS die" without just sounding a little dazed. He can't, so he'll have to be written around (= more old-school interesting secondary characters hooray!)

fp i thought the horse was douglas adams again too. and also i was trying to figure out where i knew the guy who was rounding up all the homeless from; was he mr prosser in the hitchhiker's radio prog or is he actually someone terribly terribly famous? i am rub at recognising famous people. except peter stringfellow, apparently.

Ben. You have just made my day.

And he's as good as if not better than Ecclestone at the giddy enthusiasm.

Havers in Dr Who would rock. ALTERNATE UNIVERSE TIMELORD ALERT.

ricky and his gang didn't and neither did trig

Ricky was a rebel!

I wanted to know what the joke was.

My lamZor theory. Ricky dies, Mickey takes over as Nu-Ricky. Is rubbish, loses. CybermenZor take Mickey prison and discover alternate universe, which they want to conquer and can do it through a wormhole made of Mickey's piss (last bit possible less likely).