Doctor Who Talk

[Sload Soap]

This season I've been trying to not be overly critical of the usual plot conceits recent Who is famous for

Please do share.

As a sci-fi fan I've had to sort of train myself to not let the "space magic" aspect of Nu-Who get to me so while a rapidly sprouting forest producing enough oxygen to protect earth from solar winds is a lovely metaphor, it's also pre-school levels of dumb about how the earth actually works. I don't expect nor desire Star Trek: TNG levels of explanation or science-y sounding technobabble but c'mon.

And on top of that, the whole burning sky thing has been done before in that Sontaran episode during Tennant's run so it's not even all that original.

I also didn't enjoy how readily Clara accepted the death of the human race. You'd think there would be more cosmic dread and pleading with the Doctor to do something to help (bear in mind WE know he can use the Tardis to tow planets around). Instead Clara reacted like she'd just been told she would have to come in to work on her day off.

I'll end on a positive though: I thought the child actors were actually pretty good and quite funny even the main kid who kept waving her hands around like John Edward on a mescaline trip.

[ZeroAX]

Very fair points. I find that the show really suffers from 2 major problems: so many different writers, with not even half being good, and (my major issue) the Doctor is saving the world EVERY....FUCKING.....WEEK.

I mean seriously, can't he just have some adventures? Life threatening situation + finding something new, that should be enough. There have been so many stories in the past 2 seasons where the world is in peril for no other reason than to artificially raise the stakes, and that makes all the scripts same and kind of dull. That's why my favorite series remains the 5th, where there were fewer "the entire planet will be destroyed" situations.

And anyway those writing problems lead to bad concepts like this one or the one with the moon being an egg.

[ZeroAX]

hm....very conflicting feelings about this episode.

Thing I liked:
1) Peter Capaldi's acting was perhaps the best its been in the entire series so far. The way he said go to hell was delicious
2) The funny bits in the middle. I'm just a sucker for comedy relief I guess.
3) The ending.

I just loved the (already predicted) plot twist of missy being the master, and it's nice to see a timelord regenarate into the oppossite sex. looking forward to a female doctor in the future

4) Missy

ok I haven't seen a lot of her yet, but from the first episode where we see more than 30 seconds of her we can tell that she's muuuuuuuuuuuch better than the previous master. She was schemeing and threatening.

5)

the doctor trying to escape from the stairs and missy replying "I'm not a dalek"

Things I didn't like:
1) Clara
2) Clara going Bella Swan.
3) The monster of the week

I don't know if they will somehow manage to give a reason for the cybermen to be there in the final episode, but for now they seem to exist only so there is a threat around

4)

I'm putting this here cause I KNOW I'm going to be disappointed, but when they pull out a deus ex machina from their ass to bring danny back I will be greatly disappointed.

[Sload Soap]

Just watched it on catch-up. I'll spoiler my thoughts.

I liked Missy the horny Timelady even though I think we all saw that twist coming. She's less manic than John Simm but just as mad which is nice. (Just as a side note, John Simm is an amazing actor but Russel T Davis was practically forcing the scenery down his throat the way he wrote that Master.) I wonder how much exposition will be devoted in the second part to explaining his/her reincarnation? I also thought Chris Addison did good work again as the stuffy bureaucrat dealing with Danny's initial shock.

I like the idea of the nethersphere which is very creepy but this is now officially the most contrived and stupid way to get Cybermen back into the show. I'll forgive it though as the slow reveal itself was pretty cool.

However I didn't like the Clara stuff in this episode and I hope that what she did at the beginning comes back to bite her in the arse. They've turned her from bright eyed and slightly bolshy to being borderline sociopathic. I think it was a massive hand wave by the Doctor to say he was impressed by her behaviour and I'm sort of expecting him to be quietly seething and waiting for an opportunity to dump her. Even nice Time Lords like Tennant and Davidson would find such actions intolerable so it's kind of a hard sell that Capaldi's cynical Doctor would be cool with blackmail.

Danny's "death" was also done pretty lazily IMO to contrive a situation where the Doctor and Clara would start investigating Missy. Firstly, hit by a car is probably the number one laziest shocking death available to a writer. So then the Doctor goes "can't alter time streams but I see no problem with teleporting to the afterlife"? Okay then. Like I've said a lot, there's a lot of stuff in Nu-Who where you just have to roll with it but when it comes as thick and fast as that it gets a bit hard to swallow.

And was it me or did the Doctor change clothes between leaving 3W (which isn't three words, it's two words and a contraction) and arriving in London?

Anyway, I enjoyed the overall feel of the episode and some of the concepts. Hopefully next weeks finale doesn't torpedo it all.

[Flake]

Here's my thought: Moffat is fucking lazy and spoiled one of the key moments of the Davies Era because he couldn't be bothered to exercise any creativity.

[Sload Soap]

Here's my thought: Moffat is fucking lazy and spoiled one of the key moments of the Davies Era because he couldn't be bothered to exercise any creativity.

That key moment being the Master's death? Or something else?

[ZeroAX]

Here's my thought: Moffat is fucking lazy and spoiled one of the key moments of the Davies Era because he couldn't be bothered to exercise any creativity.

That key moment being the Master's death? Or something else?

Did anyone seriously think the master would stay dead? I mean we saw him being burned and using a veeeeeeery thinly defined deus ex machina spell come back to life, the fact that he survived his encounter with rassilon with a regeneration sounds far more plausible.

BTW how many actors have played the master so far? Will be fun to see what will happen when his regenerations "run out"

[Sload Soap]

BTW how many actors have played the master so far? Will be fun to see what will happen when his regenerations "run out"

I thought five, wikipedia says nine so I must now throw away my Doctor Who badge in shame.

Supposedly there was a rumour that Charles Dance would be the Master this season which is obviously not true. Some people have gone a bit mental that a woman is playing the role which is odd given that Doctor Who has always been a pretty asexual show on the whole. Eh, doesn't bother me at all.

[ZeroAX]

Supposedly there was a rumour that Charles Dance would be the Master this season which is obviously not true. Some people have gone a bit mental that a woman is playing the role which is odd given that Doctor Who has always been a pretty asexual show on the whole. Eh, doesn't bother me at all.

I wonder when the Doctor regenerates into a woman if he will start picking up young attractive earth men instead?

Would be really hipocritical. Besides a two woman cast for Doctor Who sounds interesting (as long as they aren't as boring as that lizard/assasin couple)

[Sload Soap]

Would be really hipocritical. Besides a two woman cast for Doctor Who sounds interesting (as long as they aren't as boring as that lizard/assasin couple)

Oh god. I'd rather eat pins than watch more of that flirty faux-lesbian drivel. Moffat sure has some weird and very specific fetishes.