Doctor Who: Classic or Dud?

omg Nicole thank you for the Aldo jpg

I liked this special a lot. I will admit the "Back to the Future"-trained part of my brain was freaking out abt young & old versions of the same guy being in the same timeline together. Definitely way less embarrassing than cyber-cavemen or machine gun robo-Santas or space Titanic. Felt more scifi-y than xmasy but that's fine with me. Also the shark singing woman had my same name and there was a lot of cool knitted stuff in this ep so those are two sweet onuses that probably no one else got qa kick out of.

haha onuses was supposed to be
bonuses

lol

i didn't realize this was the 3rd special with smith already, where the fuck have the years gone

this is the first special since Davies hoos!

wtf are you watching?

or why all the soot suddenly disappeared from the Doctor or whatever don't really matter.

he's still a bit sooty out in the fog, he doesn't get properly clean until after he's spent a few hours or days or weeks travelling around in time finding Michael Gambon's old home movies and accumulating enough local currency to bribe Gambon's entire staff AND Mrs Mantovani - plenty of time to take a sonic shower in the TARDIS during all that

^^ expert plothole filling-in, there, take a moment to appreciate, you don't see it every day

(also, the close-to-death shark got from the roof to the basement and was able to breathe because the place was built on a fog marsh and therefore fish could live in the cellar, this was actually explained?)

I wished with the singing they'd chosen slightly less religious carols or elided out the most jesus-y bits, it kind of didn't seem appropriate to the magical scifi future her to be warbling 'our god heavn cannot hold him nor earth sustain' (you aren't on earth anymore!!). and considering they cut the carols weirdly anyway...

(also, the close-to-death shark got from the roof to the basement and was able to breathe because the place was built on a fog marsh and therefore fish could live in the cellar, this was actually explained?)

No, the fog had lifted from the roof and it couldn't even swim any more because of it - have no problem with the basement being a fog marsh* but there was no way for it to get there. I suppose the hand-wavy answer is that enough fog had escaped from the basement and worked its way through the house to support the shark...

* no, wait, there is. The whole thing is about seeing a fish because everyone else at school has and he's the only one that hasn't. Then the kid shows abolutely no surprise that his basement is full of them (ignoring the frozen bodies) and even explains why, like he's always known, even implying he's been down there before with his father (which is why he knows about Abagail). Surely that would be the best story for a 10 year old possible! Also, he's quite comfortable in and around them, but it was established in the scene before where he doesn't see the small one and only sees the shark as it comes through the door then dies/not dies that he hasn't seen any.

the basement's not full of them the first time iirc, it's on a subsequent awakening that Smith flashes the half-a-screwdriver at one?

Dr was a bit thick to not notice the days counting down.

Smith's Dr has been established as a) easily distracted and b) prone to missing things rly rly obviously under his nose (not the first Dr like this, but it was hammered home in the immediately previous story) - once the alarm goes off and distracts him, it makes sense that he doesn't spot it again - they're always poised to get her out and partying, with hats and scarves and fezzes ahoy, rather than studying the box for the first time as when the shark's in it

Nah, all you see of subsequent awakenings is a KJenks POV shot of them saying Happy Christmas Eve! until the last one.

ps lol Geordie LaForge

no, we definitely see Smith flashing his light at a fish while mini-Gambon's saying goodbye one time

I'll take your word for it then, I'm not rewatching to check.

This was basically not a bad story, but parts of it were so so aggravating, like to a baffling extent. HATED the singing, and Murray Gold completely undid himself in terms of making you want to find the nearest orchestra, then round up its members and execute them. Poor old Amy had absolutely FA to do, which made me a bit sad. On the plus side, the steam punk design was quite nice.

I have not said Blinivitch Limitation Effect at any point, you will notice.

Structurally this wasn't actually that different to what Moffatt had the Doctor doing in The Girl In The Fireplace or Blink - messing around with an individual's future from some point in the past. Suppose this is the first time he made them into such a radically different person but hey that's because it's a Christmas Carol.

Also, not exactly moral of the Doctor to just leave all those people frozen, is it? He's certainly changed since New Earth when he risked everything to save a room full of people locked in cells who were fatally infected...

I assume new, nice Gambon would have let them out. Actually he probably would have let them out years beforehand but whatever.

Why did Young Dumbledore continue to uphold the 'Christmas Tradition' of letting KJenks out every year once he knew she only had a week to live? Wouldn't it make more sense to a 10 year old boy's brain to give her a week with Old Dumbledore instead?

He didn't know she only had a week to live until the Marilyn party. At that point they stopped letting her out and he told the Doctor to stop bothering and started to turn into dickish old Dumbledore.

I mean we don't know how much young Dumbledore knew about all of that beyond "I grow up into an evil monster". I sort of missed the bit when the Doctor put him back though.

When Young Dumbledore appeared at the end (the whole Ghost of Christmas Future bit) he finds out the whole story about her before any of it started (that was him from the first time they met). So he willingly denied his later self extra time with her by using it up on their Christmas Eve trips - even the ones where he was too young to FEEL THE LURVE.

Actually, that means when she tells him (on their last Christmas Eve trip) it shouldn't affect him because he knows already.

the audience just hasn't seen the bit where the doctor goes back and changes that

Top Rusty handwaving, that.

it's Moffatt's handwave!

I guess the kid at the end now has to leave everyone locked up all thos years bcz he knows 4003 people will die otherwise?

No, I meant your handwave - Moffatt didn't even attempt to explain it.

Where were the Time Pterodactyls from "Father's Day"?

It's less handwaving and more "don't look at the problem and pretend it doesn't exist because 99% of your audience doesn't care". He's already had two Amy's running around together.

Still, the kid has to keep letting Katherine Jenkins out because a) if he doesn't she has no emotional resonance for his future self and the Doctor's plan falls apart b) the Doctor keeps coming back and encouraging him and c) he is a child with an evil father and no friends and you do not deprive a child with an evil father and no friends of his one bit of fun and adventure at Christmas. Also the level of resolve required in later years would be frankly beyond any teenage boy.

If 99% of your audience doesn't care then don't put in in-jokes like the Christmas Eve numbered 4 featuring the pair of them wearing long scarves. We did this in the Rusty era too, that you can't simultaneously say that continuity doesn't matter at the same time as putting in lots of jokes 'for the fans'.

Why do I put myself through this every time? Maybe I should just stick to watching The Aztecs.

Bah humbug? :)

No, I meant your handwave - Moffatt didn't even attempt to explain it.

It's a Moffatt quote.

(his attitude generally towards the story was clearly illustrated in the bit with the non-existent fish nipping at Smith and mini-Gambon going "shurrup and just enjoy it!"*)

you can't simultaneously say that continuity doesn't matter at the same time as putting in lots of jokes 'for the fans'.

of course you can! a mildly amusing in-joke for someone who spots in in the two half-second bits it's on screen doesn't require EVERYONE to have read a dozen Virgin Adventures.

* admittedly this attitude (re Christmas capers particularly, though RTD cranked it up all the time) was inherited from Rusty, on whom I hated it and felt insulted as an audient, whereas I am happy to go with it for Moffatt bcz a) I like the tone of his stories much better and b) his holes are small things that you might as well ignore if you go in wanting to have fun, whereas Rusty's were enormous, stupid, and horrible that would snap you out of being able to have fun v v often.

I enjoyed but I was so tired that the fact of the fish themselves really annoyed me in a "Oh come on" way.
I'm going to rewatch bc I drifted off in a couple of parts.
So that singing lady really does sing like that irl?

^^ I also enjoyed aldo's nitpicking moany attitude on Rusty thread's bcz I agreed with him there, but wish there was a 48-hour aldo moratorium on Smith-era threads bcz he harshes the general buzz that I now want to let settle before thinking back over them too much. tl;dr = Veg otm in previous xpost, lol

^^ although I did see this one 9 days ago and had a lovely few days of "that was fun" before rolling nitpicks around in my head and waiting to rewatch on tx

When did Gambon's actual brain change, because how you think shouldn't change your brain pattern (if that's how it works)?

btw i don't think this happened? what i understood from the action was that bcz baby-Gambon became a different kind of person after hanging out w K Jenkins and the Doctor, so his dad didn't consider him a fit successor and chose someone else for the controls to be isomorphically bonded to.

why the controls were nevertheless still in his living room (why it was still his living room), though, no idea.

No, the Doctor specifically says it doesn't work because Old Dumbledore isn't the same man any more because the plot has changed him.

If that's a genuine Moffatt handwave then megalulz@that, he's even lazier than Lawrence Miles thinks he is.

ps lol Geordie LaForge

― Stay J0rdan Fresh (sic), Sunday, December 26, 2010 2:27 AM (5 hours ago)

Mary Worth to thread, she would know what to do.

pretty sure Moffat's lazy when it comes to anything that isn't about the different narrative possibilities of time travel. it's his silly, contrary response to Rusty's technobabble ie "big, flashy, lighty thing", as opposed to some nonsense about reversing the polarity of the quantum electrodimensional charge or wtv. Hell he even pokes fun at himself for doing it - we're clearly meant to take the kid's side and think the shark just liked Abigail's singing as opposed to the Doctor going on about her voice having the right frequency.

I dunno, Moffatt-era plotholes would annoy me if they were on any other season/tv show but I'm not really bothered by them for some reason. Maybe it's cause even at his darkest, he seems to write primarily for kids and thus looks at small details with a "the kids aren't going to care, why should we?" attitude. plus sometimes i suspect he puts them in just to annoy aldo(s).

didn't see why this couldn't have had a bit more amy or rory btw - it was a bit boring with the Doctor not having anyone to exchange zings with.

Kid who played young Michael Gambon was a good little actor, I thought.

didn't see why this couldn't have had a bit more amy or rory btw - it was a bit boring with the Doctor not having anyone to exchange zings with.

Yeah! Not sure I agree with your statement, but making Rory really prominent midway through last season was a great move.

Rory listed in the opening credits for the first time I noticed.

Why was Rory in a Centurion suit, again?

Bc he was a part of that trap that the aliens made using Amy's memory and then he became a real boy (also he protected Amy for like a thousand years or something?)

I just forgot there was never a part where they went home and changed into regular clothes, I guess?

he was wearing regular clothing at the wedding iirc which happened afterwards so idk

Why was Rory in a Centurion suit, again?

Honeymoon hi-jinx.

Yes, strongly implied they were wearing what they were for sexing shenanigans and nothing else.

Yeah, was sexytimes fun (was sort-of explained when they came out of the honeymoon suite)

xpost

didn't see why this couldn't have had a bit more amy

this was a major shortcoming

I thought we all decided we hated Amy?? Maybe that doesn't apply when she's in the kissogram outfit.