Doctor Who : Fifty Years of Phone Box Travel

[Jon AS]

I've spent the last two days reading this blog. It's essentially a Doctor Who rewatch thread, starting from An Unearthly Child back in 1963 and continuing through the entire classic series. They're pretty much done, with just two more stories (Survival, from 1989, and then the 1996 TV movie) to come.

Damn, that's the kind of thing that can cost me hours of my life. Really entertaining, and Sue's reaction to the Doctor in the first story very much mirrored mine when I first watched it. Oh and I agreed with her on the violence, too. No wonder this show traumatised generations of British children, silly special effects notwithstanding.

I'm thinking, I did like the nice touch of the Doctor's speech to Merry about how atoms and stars and she's unique in the universe etcs with the obvious subtext that that's true of everyone ever except the obvious.

Yeah, I'm thinking that's going to be a theme running through all the episodes until the unravelling of the mystery.

ETA: Overall I liked the episode, with the first part being stronger. The resolution, as so often in Who, felt a bit weak. I don't mind that too much, and I think I generally prefer the show when it goes all-out weird and colourful alien stuff instead of the episodes set in contemporary Britain. Though a nuclear submarine seems like it could make for a decent setting as well.

[polishgenius]

Next week's episode has a lot of things going for it- good setting, top cast, long-awaited returning monster, solid if well-tested plot idea- but unfortunately it won't be very good because it's written by Mark Gatiss, who's a much better actor than he is a writer. On past history it will at best be average.

[Southpaw89]

I suspect it's meant to be foreshadowing, although that doesn't necessarily mean that they won't just forget to follow up on it. I think it's intended to more than just Clara not having the key, generally when people encounter a door that won't open they don't think it's because the door hates them.

I think Clara is still a bit wary of him (although perhaps not as much as she should be, after he's been stalking her through her childhood), soit might be a bit soon.

I agree, it would have been more interesting with Victorian Clara, but they seem to think that companions have to come from the early 21st Century.

I think one of the upcoming episodes is titled something like, "The Center of the Tardis." This could explain it.

[Derfel Cadarn]

I'd peg Susan as an ordinary Gallifrayan. Not uncommon, none of the redshirt guards on Gallifrey ever regenerated.

An okay episode, it looked good, just didnt have much meat. I can see it now...

Moffat - enthusiastic: Aye, it's great! Awesome CGI, tons of aliens *points to people milling around in costumes* ... it's got everything!

The director: Looking forward to shooting it, Steven!. Ah, where's the script?

Moffat: The... scri - Oh God, I forgot to hire a writer! You in the creepy costume, you're the bad guy, okay? Um, you kidnap people. And you get defeated by people .... singing. Aye.

The director: *works it out* That still leaves us with 15 minutes to kill.

Moffat: Shit! Okay, you're not the main bad guy. The CGI sun is.

The direct: *sighs* More singing?

Moffat: Aye. And, um, *looks around* get Louise to hold this leaf up.

[Derfel Cadarn]

I think one of the upcoming episodes is titled something like, "The Center of the Tardis." This could explain it.

Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS. I think. We'll fnally get to see some more of it. I just hope they do a better job than The Invasion of Time where Tom Baker spent 25 minutes running around a derelict hospital that was supposed to be the TARDIS interior. I'm guessing he selected the "70's NHS" skin.

[polishgenius]

I'd peg Susan as an ordinary Gallifrayan. Not uncommon, none of the redshirt guards on Gallifrey ever regenerated.

An okay episode, it looked good, just didnt have much meat. I can see it now...

Moffat - enthusiastic: Aye, it's great! Awesome CGI, tons of aliens *points to people milling around in costumes* ... it's got everything!

The director: Looking forward to shooting it, Peter!. Ah, where's the script?

Moffat: The... scri - Oh God, I forgot to hire a writer! You in the creepy costume, you're the bad guy, okay? Um, you kidnap people. And you get defeated by people .... singing. Aye.

The director: *works it out* That still leaves us with 15 minutes to kill.

Moffat: Shit! Okay, you're not the main bad guy. The CGI sun is.

The direct: *sighs* More singing?

Moffat: Aye. And, um, *looks around* get Louise to hold this leaf up.

The shame is that it was written by Neil Cross, who's better known for Luther which is brilliant. He's got another one coming up, I hope it's better (the possibly good news for that is that 'Hide' was written first, and he was hired late to do this one on the strength of that. So it may be less of a rush job).

[DaveSumm]

Was it entirely necessary for the bad-guy-in-glass-who-turned-out-not-to-be-the-bad-guy to be on a different orbiting whateveritwas? Because they introduced the space bike thing, then had one fuzzy shot of it travelling, then every time it skidded to its destination it happened off camera. At first I thought it was just a means of getting them there, but then why make it a seperate thing at all?

[polishgenius]

Was it entirely necessary for the bad-guy-in-glass-who-turned-out-not-to-be-the-bad-guy to be on a different orbiting whateveritwas? Because they introduced the space bike thing, then had one fuzzy shot of it travelling, then every time it skidded to its destination it happened off camera. At first I thought it was just a means of getting them there, but then why make it a seperate thing at all?

I can't remember where I read it, but literally one of the producers told Cross 'we've always wanted a hoverbike in an episode, can we write one in'?

[Castel]

I'm not sure how people could not get the significance of the leaf? Right at the beginning, we get the leaf being how Clara's parents meet: a speech from her dad about how it's the most important leaf in human history, if a single thing had gone differently they'd never have met, etc. Then a speech from the Doctor to Merry about how she (like everyone else) is incredible and unique, the culmination of a million different things, made of the stuff of the universe, and so on. So the leaf represented potential, the infinite number of different things that might have happened but didn't, the untold number of different futures and different stories. The message was not that Clara is special, but that everyone is, because we're the one of uncounted possible futures that actually happened (which has been something of a theme in New Who).

That aside... agreed that the inactivity of the aliens was odd. Also, the episode was paced quite badly, I thought, despite some nice ideas. And the Doctor spying on Clara as a child was a bit creepy, frankly. What's worse is how easily she accepts it. She should have gone totally nuts. I would have.

I just don't get why this matters. Why has this never happened before?.Has no one never brought in an item like that? Or is it just that someone finally convinced the alien to try possible futures?

[Crazydog7]

I didn't think it was awful but it has been done better before even an average Doctor Who episode is great but the grand overarching storyline for this season remains to be seen. Haven't we moved past this villian of the week stuff?

[felice]

Or is it just that someone finally convinced the alien to try possible futures?

Exactly. The whole thing was pretty ritualised; I doubt the god-planet had ever had anyone demand it try something different like that. Indeed, it hasn't even been awake to pay attention to such a suggestion for thousands of years.

[felice]

Haven't we moved past this villian of the week stuff?

In Doctor Who? Of course not! It's supposed to be about hopping around all of time and space at random, which isn't really suited to grand overarching storylines.

[Crazydog7]

In Doctor Who? Of course not! It's supposed to be about hopping around all of time and space at random, which isn't really suited to grand overarching storylines.

Bad Wolf

The Slience

Minster Saxton

[DemonKing]

My 5 year old son, who has never watched Dr Who before and knows nothing of it as far as I know, wondered in when I was watching a DVR of the latest episode of the new series the other day and asked me what I was watching. When I told him "Dr Who" he dutifully moved to behind the couch and peeked over the top. There must be something genetic in kids that tells them the safest place to watch Dr Who is from behind the couch!

[Jon AS]

Bad Wolf

The Slience

Minster Saxton

Yes, every season has had that type of continuity, but I wouildn't exactly call them "overarching storylines". The Silence/11th's apparent death actually got a bit more screentime (was it half the season's episodes dedicated to this?), but the others were just the occsional random reference dropped into stand-alone episodes. There wasn't much buildup, the big finale of the season was usually just a slightly bigger one- or two-episode threat.

[Castel]

Exactly. The whole thing was pretty ritualised; I doubt the god-planet had ever had anyone demand it try something different like that. Indeed, it hasn't even been awake to pay attention to such a suggestion for thousands of years.

Fair enough. I still think that the episode tacked on one boss too many. I thought that the mummy thing was cool. They could have worked from that. The whole twist would have been better suited to a two-parter.

[felice]

The whole twist would have been better suited to a two-parter.

Oh yes, two episodes would definitely have helped, given time to actually develop the society a bit. Being too rushed is a problem with a lot of modern DW stories.

[polishgenius]

the grand overarching storyline for this season remains to be seen.

Really? I thought it was pretty obvious that it's a combination of Clara's mystery and the Great Intelligence. I dunno where you got the impression that Doctor Who should have moved past villain/monster of the week given that we've not yet had a single season where that hasn't been the structure. And this is still part of season 7 in which Moffatt promised to chill his beans on the overarching stuff and have each story work even more standalone than his first two seasons, with the 'movie poster' theme.

[Lord_Baelish]

Are there going to be any two-parters in this series?

[Werthead]

I dunno where you got the impression that Doctor Who should have moved past villain/monster of the week given that we've not yet had a single season where that hasn't been the structure.

Yup. The show started 50 years ago. This is the thirty-third season. The villain/monster of the week structure has been part of the series since 1963 and isn't going anywhere. There've been experimental deviations away from it (such as the Doctor confronting a well-meaning good guy who inadvertently causes havoc, or the Doctor himself launching an offensive against an enemy, or the Doctor dealing with a simple natural disaster etc) but these have never become the new paradigm.

In the overall context of the series, even the 'season-long mystery arc' is still very much in the minority (with only nine - ten if you count the very loose 'E-Space' stories from Season 18 - featuring one) and is not the norm, though it has been since the show returned in 2005. This season's is actually the loosest arc we've had to date, and I think the show's been much better for it, compared to the confused convulsions of the last two seasons.

I can't remember where I read it, but literally one of the producers told Cross 'we've always wanted a hoverbike in an episode, can we write one in'?

Weird, as they established that the Doctor's bike was a hoverbike in the previous episode. Rather than spend five minutes dicking around with the merchant, they could have just grabbed that out of the TARDIS. Or, y'know, just used the TARDIS to get to Alien Pyramid Asteroid.

Are there going to be any two-parters in this series?

Not to my knowledge. Apparently Moffatt hates them and prefers either stand-alones or the sort-of-stand-alones-but-part-of-a-larger-arc structure of the previous two seasons. Considering the quality of most of the two-parters since the show returned, he may have a point.