[TV] Doctor Who

[BrooklynKnight]

Yeah, I gotta admit it went to far with it this time - enough to bug me a bit! I'm fine with it unlocking doors, scanning stuff, and interfacing with computers, but making guns explode goes past my personal line.

Really? Looked like he was simply overloading the guns circuitry to me..

 

[Wycen]

This entire season is one time travel story. And we'll put it together later and wonder how we didn't figure it out earlier.

Only this weekend have I gotten to watch any of the newest episodes with the new doctor, (oh, except last week with the aliens in Venice), but the space whale-city episode and the Churchill-Dalek episodes both ended with v-shaped glows in space, so it seems obvious to me the whole series is leading up to something, like the previous Bad Wolf clues. I wasn't able to watch the whole stone angel arc so I'm not sure it manifest in those episodes.

But I will say the Churchill episode just about tops my list as a bad episode for Dr. Who. I know a lot of the pre 21st century episodes may count, but those are distant in my memory. The Churchill character broke the 4th wall for me. He looked like the farting green alien guy. The ones who wear humans as suits. IMDB says they aren't the same person, but I kept seeing a big green farting alien smoking a cigar.

Then throw in the spitfires in space. Cool, except....(others I think have said it better).

But the real kicker is the Daleks. I used to love them, but frankly, I don't care anymore. Depending on how I parse the "new paradigm" and "Progenitor device" that creates a paradox philosphers would enjoy debating.

How about a new race, using salvaged Dalek material?

 

[Doug McCrae]

It was very old-school Who. Aside from the special effects and the 45-minute episode lenght, I felt I cuold have been watching an old Tom Baker episode.

I was thinking the same thing. Enjoyable but pretty much an exact duplicate of 70s Who. We must move on, we can't just copy the past.

 

[Morrus]

Only this weekend have I gotten to watch any of the newest episodes with the new doctor, (oh, except last week with the aliens in Venice), but the space whale-city episode and the Churchill-Dalek episodes both ended with v-shaped glows in space, so it seems obvious to me the whole series is leading up to something, like the previous Bad Wolf clues. I wasn't able to watch the whole stone angel arc so I'm not sure it manifest in those episodes.

Very much so. It's featured in every story this year, and was a major plot point in the three of those stories.

 

[nerfherder]

Yeah, I gotta admit it went to far with it this time - enough to bug me a bit! I'm fine with it unlocking doors, scanning stuff, and interfacing with computers, but making guns explode goes past my personal line.

Same here - it suddenly makes a lot of threats non-threatening.

 

[nerfherder]

Well, new show again today:

The Hungry Earth - It's 2020 in South Wales, and the Silurians return. To be honest, I never really cared for the lizard men from the old series, but the way they're reintroduced here was quite good. Nice build up of suspense up to the moment they appear, and some props must be given Neve Mcintosh for some fine acting under some great makeup and prosthetics (and a definite improvement over the silly rubber masks from their first appearance). Matt Smith is still in top form, as is Arthur Davill, while Karen is relegated to the sidelines playing the damsel in distress. Shame really. Anyway, good start to this two parter, hope the follow up doesn't disappoint.

The thing I found jarring with this episode was that the deepest mining drill in the world seemed to be being operated by one family and a scientist in Wales.

 

[MarkB]

The thing I found jarring with this episode was that the deepest mining drill in the world seemed to be being operated by one family and a scientist in Wales.

They made it pretty clear that there was an on-shift team manning the drill most of the time, who were stationed in a nearby town. It was only off-shift that the personnel were restricted to the handful who actually lived on-site.

What I disliked was that it didn't just take its tone from older stories - it recycled whole plot devices from them. The big drill is right out of Inferno (to the extent that you have to wonder, assuming the events of Inferno are in-continuity with the new series, who thought it would be a good idea to drill that deep again, after the last such project threatened to engulf the world in magma death). The new-look silurians do look good, but this story brings nothing new to the ethical debate that wasn't covered in their previous outings, instead re-hashing those plot lines.

What I'd dearly love to have seen is a capping scene that we seemed to be heading towards, to the extent that I tend to wonder if it had been part of the original script, and been squeezed out by the space-crack ending - a visit to the Earth of a thousand years hence, to show us whether the mooted peace actually worked out. As it was, the voiceover only hinted at a successful resolution.

 

[Felon]

Really? Looked like he was simply overloading the guns circuitry to me..

The point being, if he can overload the circuity of a device pointed at him, how big of a threat are such devices?

Ostensibly, the Doctor is a miraculous entity that fends off the most dangerous menaces that the universe has to offer armed only with his marvelous brain. When he uses the screwdriver to dispel problems with a flick of the wrist, that cheats the premise. He's not some brilliaant problem-solver when he does so, he's just some guy with a magic wand.

 

[nerfherder]

They made it pretty clear that there was an on-shift team manning the drill most of the time, who were stationed in a nearby town. It was only off-shift that the personnel were restricted to the handful who actually lived on-site.

Yes, but the off-shift was one man, and the drill kept operating during that shift. I just expected the deepest drill in the world to require more than one person to operate it.

 

[Fast Learner]

The point being, if he can overload the circuity of a device pointed at him, how big of a threat are such devices?

Right, and it introduces the question of why he can't just disable Dalek guns, Cybermen everything, etc.

Don't make it disable guns, period.