Doctor Who

[Skummy]

Bloody loved that episode...wasn't quite as "action-packed" as I'd hoped, but certainly didn't suffer for it. I thought Rory was suitably bad-ass, and never felt out of character for it - I've always thought that he's capable of incredible things, he just lacks confidence; as soon as Amy's in danger, though, he's on the case!

The swerve at the beginning was brilliant - all the "he looks young, but he's hundreds of years old, and he's your father" stuff. Absolutely loved it, because for a moment it really had me thinking "What? You prick!", but then literally seconds before the reveal going "Oh, it's Rory!". Strange aside - but Rory's technically actually older than the Doctor, isn't he?

The Church being the "Big Bad" for the next part of the series (and maybe longer still?) could be awesome. There's a mine of untapped potential there.

Melody being Flesh genuinely made me gasp. I didn't see it coming, and it genuinely freaked me out...maybe it's because I've been in a brooding mood lately, as my niece was only born a few days ago, but that really got me.

I saw the identity of River Song coming a mile off, as I'm sure most people did, but that doesn't change that it was beautifully written and well-executed. It raises a few questions out-of-character, considering River was introduced well before Amy, as to whether or not this was always the plan for her character, but it works, so who gives a shit? We still don't know why she's in prison, though, and with the explanation being that she killed "the best man she ever knew", my theory is now that she'll end up killing Rory - the Doctor, while always referred to as a "good man", has proven time and time again - and reiterated to breaking point in this episode - that he can be a nasty piece of work, while Rory is arguably the most "pure" character in the series at this point, having never intentionally wronged anybody, to the best of my knowledge.

Ultimately, this episode served to put a stop to the idea of the Doctor as a kind of mythical being, a folk-hero/villain, and in turn to stop the "I'm the Doctor, fear me" bluff/defence when confronted by an enemy he can't logically defeat. This is the time it doesn't work. Not only that, but now Amy and Rory are left not trusting him, or believing in him half as much as they once did.

It's probably as much the change from RTD to Moffat as it is Tennant to Smith, but the handling of the Doctor as a tragic figure was a thousand times better than it ever has been before. While Tennant, and even moreso Ecclestone, came across as mopey and self-pitying, you genuinely felt that Matt Smith's Doctor's world had collapsed around him, that everything he truly believed in had fallen apart. I can't believe there could possibly be anyone else out there still doubting his suitability for the role.

Downsides...I don't like the idea that we got the word "doctor" from him, as River Song suggested - partly because The Master has already mocked The Doctor for his choice of name based on the word's meaning, but mostly because it's too close to the kind of Messianic hero worship bullshit that started with Davies, that this episode should really have conclusively put a stop to. The Doctor should be a wandering figure, noticed by the few, leaving footprints only noticeable if you care to look for them - he shouldn't be someone with a lasting effect on cultures or language.

I also felt that, while having a cool image, very little was done to explore the Headless Monks. They looked cool, they were treated as a serious threat, and The Church had to justify allying with them - but...who are they? Why should forming an alliance with them be a strange thing? I'm assuming all that will be fleshed out in the next part of the series, though, admittedly.

Good points? The Sontaran nurse was brilliant. He had all the best lines of the episode, and he was hugely entertaining. His death, telling Rory that he was "just a nurse" was fantastic too - Rory, too, is a nurse, playing at being, and being perceived as, a "warrior", and so, in many ways, is the Doctor. It questioned the order of things, character-wise, in a fantastically subtle way. In fact, the supporting cast were all brilliant. Dorium was superb, and it's a shame we never got to see more of him as a character, and Vastra and her implied lover were hilarious. Also another young woman whose life, like Amy's, and like River's, was changed completely by having met the Doctor as a young girl only, this time, the Doctor never came back for her, didn't even remember who she was. In fact, I felt that the scene of him talking to her, telling her he remembered her, only to then have to ask River who she was, did just as much to highlight the flaws of the character, and his inherent contradictions, as the fuck-ups and deaths he caused in the same episode.

So...yeah, not what I expected, but a brilliant - if slightly odd - episode all-round.

[Colly]

Silly question, but where did all the Silurians, judoons etc disappear to when the shit hit the fan? Useless sods...

[Timmoru Suzuki]

^^^ They were escorting the armies off Demon's Run. ^^^

Something I noticed on the re-watch: How did Eye-patch woman escape Hugh Boneville and his pirates?

Skummy hit everything spot on, and summed the episode up very well. Matt Smith was amazing in that episode, and if there was still the slight lingering doubt that he didn't do 'angry' as well as he might, it is gone now. In the scene with 'Colonel Runaway,' in particular he was just brilliant.

As for the name 'Doctor,' I think the idea might be that the Doctor chose the name based on it's meanings; but then is own hundreds of years of adventures created the very word in the first place. It's not inconceivable (especially in light of the RTD era mythical hero stuff) that a few adventures in a few early civilisations could have given birth to the word and spread the 'legend,' far more easily than it would today.

On that note, I'll say again that I really liked the idea that the word Doctor means different things in some cultures, like 'Magnificent Warrior,' in the Forest; like 'Oncoming Storm,' for the Daleks.

Edited June 6, 2011 by Yoshihiro timmayyama

[TheWho87]

Seems like their animating another Doctor Who for DVD with a little help from Big Finish and Theta Sigma.

Can you tell what it is yet?

[Benji]

One thing I've noticed about Moffat's show running, is that whilst his episodes this series aren't particularly fantastic upon first watch usually, they have major replay value. This was one of them. Also, I have a theory, which I'm spoilering just because I can...

The astronaut child is clearly River, but what if she shot The Doctor in an elaborate set up by The Doctor. If the bad guys were watching, then maybe she could only escape the suit by killing The Doctor, and so he set up that entire scene to free the child? But that means that River is still traumatised by killing a great man, so of course, the double bluff is that she'll kill Rory? Just a theory, but could be fun to see it come to pass like that.

Also, I was disappointed they killed Dorian. Much like Sec, he had potential to much a great recurring character, much more than any of those who survived (with the exception of the Sontaran Nurse, maybe). Still, a good set up for the next half of the series, and "Let's Kill Hitler!" might be the greatest episode title ever.

[Frederick Jameson]

I just found this on another site but it does contain a spoiler from the mid season finale what is strange is read what is said and who said it as well as the date it was posted

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.drwho/browse_thread/thread/7cd734f99a62ae98/c845f05e9b213df9?lnk=st&q&hl=en&pli=1#c845f05e9b213df9

[Skummy]

The astronaut child is clearly River, but what if she shot The Doctor in an elaborate set up by The Doctor. If the bad guys were watching, then maybe she could only escape the suit by killing The Doctor, and so he set up that entire scene to free the child? But that means that River is still traumatised by killing a great man, so of course, the double bluff is that she'll kill Rory? Just a theory, but could be fun to see it come to pass like that.

I don't believe the child was actually in the astronaut suit when the Doctor was shot...but still, wait and see.

As for that link, yeah, it's been brought up in a couple of places. It's kinda cool that it's re-surfaced after all this time, but it's not so much a "spoiler" as it is evidence that Moffat was a fan, and is now using his position to crowbar in some of his old theories about the character and the series - and who wouldn't?

[Berober]

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s7/doctor-who/news/a323822/john-barrowman-keen-on-doctor-who-return.html

Make it so!

[Benji]

http://www.digitalsp...who-return.html

Make it so!

Wrong sci-fi.

[Skummy]

Arthur Darvill has said that the twists and reveals in the next part of the series are going to be far more shocking than that at the end of the last episode. So that's a thing.

It's looking more and more likely that Amy and Rory won't be back after this season - Rory will be on stage in Dr. Faustus, and Amy will be filming We'll Take Manhattan - which sucks. They've got fantastic chemistry with each other, and with the Doctor, Rory in particular is one of my all-time favourite companions, and I can't really imagine Matt Smith without them. It makes sense that they'd be raising their baby rather than off fighting aliens, but I think the show will suffer without them - hopefully they can be brought back later, and not as a character development-crushing cameo like Rose was relegated to after she left.

Incidentally, I found a quote from Terry Pratchett in an article he wrote about Dr. Who for SFX that pretty much sums up my chief criticism of how RTD wrote it;

"The unexpected, unadvertised solution which kisses it all better is known as a deus ex machina – literally, a god from the machine. And a god from the machine is what the Doctor now is. A decent detective story provides you with enough tantalising information to allow you to make a stab at a solution before the famous detective struts his stuff in the library. Doctor Who replaces this with speed, fast talking, and what appears to be that wonderful element “makeitupasyougalongeum”."

...

"The Doctor himself has in recent years been built up into an amalgam of Mother Teresa, Jesus Christ (I laughed my socks off during the Titanic episode when two golden angels lifted the Doctor heavenwards) and Tinkerbell. There is nothing he doesn't know, and nothing he can’t do. He is now becoming God, given that the position is vacant."

...basically, the Doctor, even when treated as a flawed character, was always one step ahead of everyone else, and could explain why any problem with nonsense science babble. We never once felt he was really in danger, because he was basically Christ. Worse than that, we never felt involved - you never felt like you were going to figure out the solution before he explained it, because the solution was always bullshit like "everybody on Earth say the Doctor's name at once" or "Time can be re-written" or "I'll just wipe your memory".

Ultimately it lacked consistency - any fantasy story (and that's what Dr. Who is) can be granted its internal logic. But if the Doctor was able to just wipe minds, rewrite time, basically gain new magic gubbins whenever the plot called for it, the question is always going to be "why didn't he do that last time?". It was centred around fun ideas and nice visuals, or concepts that were never fleshed out. Inconsistency is the second-worst crime a fantasy story can commit - second only to being boring, and slightly ahead of being unbelievable.

Moffat's writing has been far more consistent, and far more compelling for it - helped along by a fantastic performance by Matt Smith. And hopefully the last episode has put a stop to the Doctor as an unstoppable force, as Deus Ex Machina - it certainly seems to be ending the "I'm The Doctor, FEAR ME" get-out clause.

[lanky316]

Arthur Darvill has said that the twists and reveals in the next part of the series are going to be far more shocking than that at the end of the last episode. So that's a thing.

Given how by the time it happened it was so obvious you'd bloody hope so!

Agree with the change in writing though, I HATED the messianic doctor we used to have, the episodes were still good and enjoyable but in some cases it just got stupid. Think it says a lot that arguably the most enjoyable and nervy episode under RTD was "Blink" where the doctor was near non-existent.

[Benji]

Which, of course, was written by Moffat anyway

[lanky316]

IT was under the RTD stewardship though where everything ultimately would fit in to his vision for the sake of the storylines carried throughout the series. Moffat worked around that by including the Doctor in a negligible role and still keeping the subtle links.

[stokeriño]

My Doctor Who (modern) series 1-4 boxset should arrive this afternoon. I guess I shall spend the coming week mostly watching Eccleston episodes...and being irritated by Billie Piper's face.

[Momo]

Is it just me, or did River seem genuinely perplexed by the child ripping her way out of the Astronaut suit in the Silent episode?

Surely she'd have to know who it was, she'd remember it.

[Colly]

My Doctor Who (modern) series 1-4 boxset should arrive this afternoon. I guess I shall spend the coming week mostly watching Eccleston episodes...and being irritated by Billie Piper's face.

Irritated isn't the word I'd use. I'd Piper that's for sure.

[stokeriño]

That's too awful a pun for me even to acknowledge with an appropriate riposte.

[Colly]

I'll concede that.

[9 to 5]

Interesting to note whist I use iplayer to hear the Doctor tell Amy in The Beast Below "You never decide what I need to know" given the events of this half series so far.

[stokeriño]

Continuing my boxset watching, now up to the series 2 finale. I love the Daleks.

"You are superior in only one respect."

"What is that?"

"You are better at DYING."

Oh SNAP.