Doctor Who

[Dingle]

"OMG THE UNIVERSE IS AMAZING!" </profbriancox> He and the doctor being silly together could actually be quite a bit of fun, bringing out the child in Smith like we see occasionally.

[Skummy]

Yeah, it's "standing on a mountain saying 'BRILLIANT'" Brian Cox, not actor Brian Cox.

And not only was he a part of D:Ream, he played for hilarious '80s hard rock act Dare.

[Berober]

[Vamp]

How is it possible to spoof someone so ripe for it and be so utterly shit?

[Skummy]

It had its moments but, yeah, that was mostly a bit naff. Brian Cox spoofs himself better than that.

Though I do quite a good Brian Cox voice. I might have a stab at it.

[Benji]

Though it's something a lot of us suspected - MASSIVE spoiler for next week, in case you missed it's brief appearance in the trailer.

[Daniel Bryan]

So my girlfriend wants to start watching Doctor Who: would it be safe to just start at the beginning of the Matt Smith era? Or even the first episode of the current season? Going back all the way to the beginning of the revival (good as it is) seems like a lot of time and effort, and investing in a load of characters and plot-lines that are going to be long gone by the time she's caught up.

Plus, the old episodes aren't really representative of the current stuff; they're basically different shows. If you're trying out the show, you want to see if you'll like Matt Smith's capering, and going back to moody Eccleston isn't really going to let you know.

She can always go back and watch the older episodes if she wants, but I'm wondering if having seen the later stuff and knowing none of it's going to last would spoil the experience (and stuff like Daleks and regeneration, which could be quite cool for someone who doesn't know it's coming)?

[Benji]

Smith is a good start, the only thing you *might* need to watch from before then is Forest of the Dead/Silence in the Library double bill, as that introduces River Song, whose life and adventures becomes an important recurring element.

[Skummy]

I'm not sure about that last episode. There was some fun stuff, Brian Cox was a nice cameo, and there was some really genuine emotion out of Smith, Darvill and Gillan, understandably. Rory's Dad also continues to be the best supporting character since...well, since Rory before he became a proper companion, I suppose.

That said, I had a lot of problems with it. It felt very Russell T. Davies in places, which isn't a good thing, in my book. Ill-defined threat with an equally ill-defined pseudo-science solution, the fake TV reports trope, the security camera footage of people being affected all over the world, the melodramatic voiceover about how wonderful the Doctor is, the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP, and a fair bit of tugging on heart strings....it didn't feel like a Moffat/Smith episode, and I don't like that.

That said, I actually got teary-eyed twice, so they're doing something right. Once at the end when Rory's Dad let Amy & Rory go with the Doctor - you just know that's a set-up to something heartbreaking right around the corner - and once, as I always do, with the reference to the Brigadier.

I didn't like the Shakri as a villain, just because it's kind of thrown in there out of nowhere, and it was never explained why these "pest controllers" were abducting a select few humans, rather than just killing them all. They already had full scans of their life signs and everything else, and seemed content to just kill the vast majority of the human race, why bother taking two or three on to the ship? Was it just the people that saw the cubes in action? And if so, why not just kill them too anyway? Not to mention the Davies-esque cop-out of "oh, just Sonic Screwdriver it and it's fixed, everyone's better now". I'd have accepted it if he'd at least said he was going to reverse the polarity, seeing as for once that's pretty much exactly what he did.

That said, the idea of the Shakri is quite nice for a future episode - a kind of Time Lord Boogeyman is a great concept, something that the Doctor was scared of as a child.

I also loved the reveal that it's been ten years since Amy joined the Doctor. We've been pretty much become accustomed to these adventures all happening in real time, but it's been established all season that the times between the Doctor's visits are getting longer and longer, and it really makes you think about the nature of the character, and of time travel in general - Amy & Rory are effectively aging faster than all of their friends, but even more than that, in the last episode the Doctor mentioned his age as being around 1500. For the past few seasons, he's always been placed at around 900 years old. There's potentially 600 years worth of time travel there that's unaccounted for - Amy & Rory aren't the only ones getting older, and they aren't the only ones that time is passing for.

I don't know how much that will be touched on after next week, but there's interesting ideas in there.

[Benji]

Potential spoiler for that Skummy:

Word is that the episodes we've seen are not "in order". For the latest example - in Mercy, The Doctor references Rory/Amy leaving a phone charger in Henry VIII's bedroom, and yet in the later episode The Power of Three is when they are actually in Henry VIII's bedroom. A lot of "lost time" might wind up being time that we see, but just not in order.

He also mentioned not wanting to dissappear from memory, which makes me think that he already knows their fate, and has just gone back to enjoy his last available moments with them.

[Skummy]

Benji;

Good point - I know in the first episode of this series, the Doctor referenced something - I can't remember what - that hadn't happened yet too, and that seemed to suggest a level of seriousness we haven't seen yet this series. Though obviously next week's is when everything's going to really kick off.

[Vamp]

I think it was like a really badly written RTD style script. It had nice moments, and the emotional crux of the episode worked, but the actual plot was pretty crappy.

[Colly]

I think for me it was just that the resolution to a long setup (granted most of which was a character piece to really push the Ponds prior to next week) which included a third of the population dying, was about three seconds long of sonic screwdriver wave, explosion, done, and everyone's heart restarts. Otherwise it was fine, but the evil plot of the week was rubbish.

[stokeriño]

That said, I had a lot of problems with it. It felt very Russell T. Davies in places, which isn't a good thing, in my book. Ill-defined threat with an equally ill-defined pseudo-science solution, the fake TV reports trope, the security camera footage of people being affected all over the world, the melodramatic voiceover about how wonderful the Doctor is, the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP, and a fair bit of tugging on heart strings....it didn't feel like a Moffat/Smith episode, and I don't like that.

These was basically my thoughts. Weird things appear all over Earth (cue Taj Mahal shot), a big "don't kill humanity, humanity is WONDERFUL" speech, and wrapped up with a "but then, everybody loves The Doctor don't they?" bit at the end. Blah.

[Your Mom]

I dont want Amy and Rory to leave

[GhostMachine]

I don't want Amy and Rory to leave, either. But....I hope there's a swerve with the new companion and

Its actually Oswin from Asylum Of The Daleks from an earlier period in her timeline.

But I bet they won't have the balls to do that.

[apsham]

I don't think that's essentially a "balls to do that" thing, but rather a fandom hoping that they figured something out thing. If it does work out that way, I don't see anything groundbreaking about it.

[Colly]

It'd just be a much shitter River Song 'death in first episode' scenario, but with a much poorer death and none of the emotional nightmare River went through knowing what she was losing since Oswin was chirpy til the end.

[Benji]

Someone hold me

[GhostMachine]

Someone hold me

I'm going to be soooo disappointed when we don't get an episode called Daleks In The Outfield next season....