Doctor Who

[SeanDMan]

I echo the urge to fuck Rose.

[Skummy]

It's Eccleston, people! No 'e' at the end! Gah!

Anyway, Eccleston is severely underrated, because he was fantastic. Seriously amazing in some episodes (Dalek springs to mind) and the strength of his performance helped carry the show through the revival.

Ugh. "Dalek" was the point of no return for me. I didn't watch the rest of his series, and didn't start watching again properly into fairly far into Tennant's run. It was an appalling episode - apart from reintroducing the Daleks, only to re-cast them as whining "I just want to see the sun" generic "turned out he was just misunderstood all along" new Who villains, the Doctor's behaviour towards the Dalek was completely vindictive and out of character, calling it "the great space dustbin" did one thing you should never do in sci-fi/fantasy and drew attention to how ridiculous the character's design is, and the Doctor came across as a complete moron by not getting the "Doctor is the same as the Daleks" message from the moment the Dalek said "you and I are the same", and again for failing to remember that the Daleks learned how to climb stairs decades previously.

Fucking horrible, horrible episode.

[Daniel Bryan]

Ugh. "Dalek" was the point of no return for me. I didn't watch the rest of his series, and didn't start watching again properly into fairly far into Tennant's run. It was an appalling episode - apart from reintroducing the Daleks, only to re-cast them as whining "I just want to see the sun" generic "turned out he was just misunderstood all along" new Who villains, the Doctor's behaviour towards the Dalek was completely vindictive and out of character, calling it "the great space dustbin" did one thing you should never do in sci-fi/fantasy and drew attention to how ridiculous the character's design is, and the Doctor came across as a complete moron by not getting the "Doctor is the same as the Daleks" message from the moment the Dalek said "you and I are the same", and again for failing to remember that the Daleks learned how to climb stairs decades previously.

The Daleks weren't whiny and misunderstood, the lone Dalek became infected by human DNA and emotions, went insane and committed suicide rather than change, which is a damn sight more interesting than a Dalek simply killing a bunch of people then getting killed and probably the best way of re-introducing the Dalek concept while keeping a single Dalek interesting. It was six episodes in and the Doctor's behaviour was completely consistent with what we'd seen and would go on to see of his character, taunting the Dalek's appearance was to increase the shock value when it started murdering everyone, chiding a character in a story for not understanding the theme of the work is retarded, and the Doctor wasn't even there when people who had never seen a Dalek before thought it couldn't climb stairs.

More to the point, the scene with the Dalek and the Doctor in the cage is an amazing performance by Eccleston. I could watch it every day and never get tired of it. He's so good.

Edited September 8, 2011 by The Dragon

[Olive the other Jiberdeer]

And if you still don't like the episode, it was Rose's fault.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

I liked Eccleston.

Just flicking through a few youtube clips someone posted:

"I liked him being slightly grumpy and misanthropic.

10 and 11 adore the human race.

I can't think why."

[Skummy]

Maybe it's wanting something different from the Doctor, or having different standards of what constitutes good acting, but I hated Eccleston's performance taunting the Dalek, it was completely at odds with anything I would expect from the Doctor in any incarnation, and, like I said, made himlook a complete idiot for continuing to taunt it when the Dalek said that they were essentially the same. I thought the whole scene was cringeworthy.

The Dalek "developing human emotions" is no better a plot point than if the Dalek had spontaneously developed emotion all by itself - I know it's fantasy, and that because of that you can invent new magical powers for your characters whenever the plot calls for it, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth that the Dalek could absorb human DNA yet none of them had ever thought to do this in the past. See also; the Dalek randomly "committing suicide" at the end via yet another hitherto unseen magical power.

chiding a character in a story for not understanding the theme of the work is retarded, and the Doctor wasn't even there when people who had never seen a Dalek before thought it couldn't climb stairs.

This seems like two contradictory points to me. Yes, the Doctor wasn't there, but the people who were there instantly "knew" that Daleks, something they had never seen before, couldn't climb stairs. They just jumped to that conclusion, and were shocked when it turned out they were wrong. It was there to play on a pop culture perception of Daleks, and made little sense in the context of the story itself.

New Who didn't get good until Tennant's run, and even then it was horribly patchy. I don't recall a single episode with Eccleston that I'd want to watch again, and there's not a single other Doctor that I'd give that distinction. Doesn't help that I find Rose unbearable.

[Benji]

The Dalek "developing human emotions" is no better a plot point than if the Dalek had spontaneously developed emotion all by itself - I know it's fantasy, and that because of that you can invent new magical powers for your characters whenever the plot calls for it, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth that the Dalek could absorb human DNA yet none of them had ever thought to do this in the past. See also; the Dalek randomly "committing suicide" at the end via yet another hitherto unseen magical power.

Daleks saw being part human as disgusting. That was the entire point of one of the later episodes. As for the 'unseen magic power', when else would a Dalek want or need to destroy themselves? It's casing is a machine designed for war, I'm just amazed that it was an implosion rather than explosion, so it could do what it was bred for - destruction.

[SeanDMan]

So, what does everyone think of the new Torchwood?

[Olive the other Jiberdeer]

Maybe it's wanting something different from the Doctor, or having different standards of what constitutes good acting, but I hated Eccleston's performance taunting the Dalek, it was completely at odds with anything I would expect from the Doctor in any incarnation, and, like I said, made himlook a complete idiot for continuing to taunt it when the Dalek said that they were essentially the same. I thought the whole scene was cringeworthy.

The Dalek "developing human emotions" is no better a plot point than if the Dalek had spontaneously developed emotion all by itself - I know it's fantasy, and that because of that you can invent new magical powers for your characters whenever the plot calls for it, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth that the Dalek could absorb human DNA yet none of them had ever thought to do this in the past. See also; the Dalek randomly "committing suicide" at the end via yet another hitherto unseen magical power.

chiding a character in a story for not understanding the theme of the work is retarded, and the Doctor wasn't even there when people who had never seen a Dalek before thought it couldn't climb stairs.

This seems like two contradictory points to me. Yes, the Doctor wasn't there, but the people who were there instantly "knew" that Daleks, something they had never seen before, couldn't climb stairs. They just jumped to that conclusion, and were shocked when it turned out they were wrong. It was there to play on a pop culture perception of Daleks, and made little sense in the context of the story itself.

New Who didn't get good until Tennant's run, and even then it was horribly patchy. I don't recall a single episode with Eccleston that I'd want to watch again, and there's not a single other Doctor that I'd give that distinction. Doesn't help that I find Rose unbearable.

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, surely.

That was the bright spot of 9th's run.

[Skummy]

The Dalek "developing human emotions" is no better a plot point than if the Dalek had spontaneously developed emotion all by itself - I know it's fantasy, and that because of that you can invent new magical powers for your characters whenever the plot calls for it, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth that the Dalek could absorb human DNA yet none of them had ever thought to do this in the past. See also; the Dalek randomly "committing suicide" at the end via yet another hitherto unseen magical power.

Daleks saw being part human as disgusting. That was the entire point of one of the later episodes. As for the 'unseen magic power', when else would a Dalek want or need to destroy themselves? It's casing is a machine designed for war, I'm just amazed that it was an implosion rather than explosion, so it could do what it was bred for - destruction.

If humans are inferior to the Daleks - as Daleks believe they are, and Davros believed they were, and all the rest - why would they even be capable of absorbing human DNA? And if there was never perceived to be a reason for the Dalek to destroy themselves, why would they have the capability?

I will admit that the Empty Child was pretty good - nothing I'd re-watch out of choice, but wouldn't switch off I caught it on TV. The second episode had the perpetual problem of new Who two-parters and was a lot weaker than the first part, though.

[Vamp]

Maybe it's wanting something different from the Doctor, or having different standards of what constitutes good acting, but I hated Eccleston's performance taunting the Dalek, it was completely at odds with anything I would expect from the Doctor in any incarnation, and, like I said, made him look a complete idiot for continuing to taunt it when the Dalek said that they were essentially the same. I thought the whole scene was cringe worthy.

Yeah but you're kind of ignoring the whole Time War narrative. The 9th Doctor was different, partly because he needed to be to ease an audience back into the show but also, in character terms, because he'd committed genocide, something so totally at odds with his character. He was forced into doing it because he knew it was the right thing, but there's no way something like that doesn't change you. The whole course of the first series is essentially about the Doctor realising that he can still be the Doctor and forgiving himself for what he's done. Admittedly it then gets dragged into later episodes and he never really gets over it but I don't suppose you would. He does become himself again though. And I don't even get what you're saying about how he's an idiot for not realising him and his arch enemy, the ultimate killing machine, are the same. I mean, who the hell would want to? Personally I think he knows subconsciously, the effects of trauma on him are pretty clear to see, and by the end of the episode he has to confront it. Its fine writing. Good even.

Even as an introduction to the Daleks its fine. I mean, they haven't been written at all well in the New Series overall, but that's because they've appeared to many times, but the episode could have done a far worse job with them. They did something different with them that focused numerous themes beyond 'evil machine vs. clever guy'. Even beside that we see that one sick Dalek is an utterly destructive force, which leads a six year old to think that when a load of real Daleks come along they're going to impossible to beat. And by the time we get proper Daleks, which doesn't really happen to a Stolen Earth (I suppose you could count the Cult of Skaro but I don't since they're designed to be different from the average Dalek), you see the Doctor completely shut down because he doesn't think he can win. And in the end he ultimately needs three time lords to beat them, including a human timelord that's never happened before. If you'd have introduced a normal plain Dalek right from the off then you would have had them defeated right from the off. And that'd set them up as easy to defeat. They ended up become that way too soon as it was. Instead the Doctor didn't win in 'Dalek', but the Dalek gave up.

This seems like two contradictory points to me. Yes, the Doctor wasn't there, but the people who were there instantly "knew" that Daleks, something they had never seen before, couldn't climb stairs. They just jumped to that conclusion, and were shocked when it turned out they were wrong. It was there to play on a pop culture perception of Daleks, and made little sense in the context of the story itself.

Again, I don't think you've got much to stand on with this argument. People didn't think the Daleks could climb stairs because they were pepper pots on wheels. Because they didn't have any legs. You've got a bunch of humans who have never seen an actual live alien before and see a great big killer pepper pot which is chasing them. They're minds aren't working right to begin with. And desperately they hope that now they've climbed up the stairs there's nothing this thing can do because he doesn't have any legs, because they've never seen a giant pepper pot fly before. And so they're relieved. Its fine. It makes psychological sense. The whole point of Van Staton's people in the episode is that they've never actually had a real alien before. They don't know how to treat them. The whole point of the musical instrument was to prove that despite collecting all the equipment they knew totally nothing about any of it. That's set up the whole way through the episode. So they don't think "hey this alien could fly" because they know sod all about aliens.

calling it "the great space dustbin" did one thing you should never do in sci-fi/fantasy and drew attention to how ridiculous the character's design is

But then, as you later point out, the public already knows how stupid the Dalek design is. Its pop culture. Everyone knows the jokes. Which brings along two points. A) The slightly kitsch value is still a big part of the show. The Doctor even saves the world from Cybermen with the use of a mobile phone. It's not serious sci-fi, and is all the worse when it attempts to be. Some of the appeal of the show is that little bit of lameness you don't get from the adult science fiction series. B) By having that line so early on in the episode it voices what every child watching it probably thought of the Dalek. The Dalek then proves to be an incredibly destructive force. Without the line you might think "well yeah, but its only a dustbin" but because of the line the effectiveness of the killing machine entrapping the dalek becomes all the more prominent. Effectively the line is rubbished. Yeah, it does look like a dustbin, but so fucking what, is the script's message. And considering the budget, the need for Doctor Who to have the odd lame alien to still be what it is and the often used monster of the week format it's very important they establish that message early on in the new series.

That and the fact that Daleks are fucking hard to write for. They've done everything, and most of the time their episodes haven't been all that great. That's mostly why Moffat doesn't really want to write them yet. There's things you can knock about the first series, comparing it to later series proves just how much of it was an experiment to try and find a style, but Dalek did pretty much what it had to.

[Benji]

Well... that was crap...

... in opposite world. Fucking awesome episode. Rory's comment of "you're trying to turn me into you" had me despising The Doctor.

[stokeriño]

Thirty-six years. At first I thought that happened to be the exact same amount of time that Lister was marooned on Garbage World whilst he waited to be rescued by Red Dwarf, and that inexplicably pleased me on some geeky level.

Then I checked, and it turned out Lister was marooned for thirty-four years, and my geekness was sad.

[Colossus]

That was great. Great performances by the 3, cool story, grean ending.

Rory being forced to choose between Amy's was just heartbreaking, and just shows how great of a relationship they have built. Despite waiting 36 years, and having to kill her to save her, they are still in love.

[AnnIQ Edison]

So it looks like next week The Doctor takes on The Shining.

Great episode this week though.

[Daniel Bryan]

Pfft, 36 years? Try 2000 years and being made of plastic, ya big whiner.

[Vamp]

I'm a bit dubious about how when women fancy a 900 year old alien they don't feel a need to show that it makes sense (because, you know, he's hot) but when a woman is in her fifties and wrinkly they have to bash you round the head twice to make sure you see that it's normal for Rory to still love her. I kinda figure we know by now that he loves her for more than her exceptional looks, we don't really need to have him tell us twice that he loves her for more than just what she is.

Other than that it was alright. I preferred last weeks to be honest, but at least they got around how cheap an episode it was. It felt like it was trying really hard to be a turning point character wise, or at least an episode that changed the way you looked at characters but it wasn't. We know Rory's insanely in love with Amy and we know he doesn't want to be the Doctor and doesn't really approve of the way he lives his life.

But what really bothers me is that they played the 'trying to be a helpful nurse but misunderstands or is misunderstood' card twice in the same bloody series. I wouldn't have minded if it was two following series but in the same one? Really?

[AnnIQ Edison]

I'm a bit dubious about how when women fancy a 900 year old alien they don't feel a need to show that it makes sense (because, you know, he's hot) but when a woman is in her fifties and wrinkly they have to bash you round the head twice to make sure you see that it's normal for Rory to still love her. I kinda figure we know by now that he loves her for more than her exceptional looks, we don't really need to have him tell us twice that he loves her for more than just what she is.

Because one is the woman he loves and he has to choose between the older version and the younger version. The other is a 900 year old alien who looks 27.

[Vamp]

That's not what I was talking about. There were about two lines where Rory explained to her that he loved her for more than her looks. That'd have been okay once, but he made that point twice. That was for the audience's sake in case they didn't get it. Or at least that's the way it felt to me. It was just a tad too heavy handed at a point that didn't really need to be made for the audience's sake anyway.

[DFF]

I absolutely loved this week's episode. So emotional and so brillaintly put together (acting, script, etc)