Marleen’s NO SPOILERS Doctor Who Thread – Part II

Cheers :D

> So please don?t post anything relating to new series episodes beyond that until Marleen does.

“Dum-da-dum, dum-da-dum, dum-da-dum, dum-dum-da-dum-da-dum…”

That’s the theme tune from the next episode. I’m such a rebel.

And we love you too. Because, y’know, we’re nice like that.

If more ladies made SQL jokes then this world would be a far nicer place to live in.

I dreamt last night that I’d been employed by Angel Investigations. Spike had teamed up with Drucilla again and Angel had me call Spike on his cellphone to shake him down for information. He was remarkably forthcoming with information.

Of course, the dream started slightly more bizarrely. An old man, who I’m fairly sure was an Eastenders character although I haven’t seen the show since I moved to LA, had a heart attack at a funeral, and the next thing I know I’ve woken up in a coffin on an ocean liner. The top and side comes off and there are people (I forget who) informing me that I’d better take a shower because using a used coffin as a means of transportation has karmic impact. I climb out of the coffin and a moldy skeletal leg falls out behind me with perfect comic timing. Then I had a shower.

I realise we’ve strayed somewhat from the original topic at hand, which is… erm… hats?

Episode 2×05 – Rise of the Cybermen
Episode 2×06 – The Age of Steel

Good

- There was some funny lines in there, especially in Rise of the Cybermen.
- Cybermen.
- Continuity. (As in Pete, Ricky, … erhm. That’s it.)
- Archetypical bad guy. I like evil scientists. Not in real life, of course.
- I liked how the design of the cybermen seemed to have evolved from the earplug antennae.
- I liked the president.

Ungood

- But there were also a lot of very corny lines. Like the Doctor’s speech before his other speech (the code one – that one was okay).
- I had a feeling everything would change for Mickey, but him just staying there in place of dead Ricky, hm, I don’t know, is so clich?. I expected him to at least turn evil, or something entirely different.
- Hm. And: getting rid of Mickey when he just started to be fun! I’m going to miss him!
- How did the daily download work for people driving cars?

Miscellaneous

- Giving the episode the name “Rise of the Cybermen” really took away from the suspension. Glad that there was at least no teaser at the end of the episode though spoiling the second part.
- Exploding heads.
- Exploding everything.
- Welsh accent is so so weird.
- Rose just loves to hang down from a zeppelin, doesn’t she. Is that sort of a running gag? Will she be doing it in series three, too? I’ll find out!
- Did the writers have anything specific in mind to come back to when they wrote the Doctor calling him “Ricky” for the first time?
- Well, I don’t know how the Cybermen evolved in the Doctor’s universe, but if the two incidents were connected by a greater frame, that would be nice. I know in two parallel worlds, such things could just happen to happen, but still.

On Doctors Nine & Ten

- Forgot to mention it last week: last week I almost forgot my grief for the Ninth Doctor since the episode was brilliant and also seemed to suit the Tenth Doctor’s style well. In fact, I said to Vincent (half-jokingly), what was it again that was so brilliant about the Ninth Doctor?
- But now the Cybermen episodes on the other hand would have fit the Ninth Doctor better as they were dark and brooding and about loss and pain.

Summary

I liked the first part better than the second (and especially than its ending).
I’d been looking forward to my first Cybermen episode and, well, I can’t say I’m disappointed because it was kind of epic (being a two-parter and Mickey’s finale), but for such an epic pair of episodes, it was not all that. It should have felt better than average.

Haha, look at me, five months ago I had no idea what Doctor Who was about, and I’m already complaining like a spoilt child.

>- I liked the president.

Did you recognize him? If not, check out Holoship for a younger model. In a dodgy jumpsuit. In a particularly great gag.

(I suddenly feel paranoid as it’s while since I saw that Cyberman episode, but I think my memory is correct. I’m sure it’s him.)

Oh and by the way: Torchwood.

- Torchwood institute… bla bla bla… published a study.

Hm. The Bad Wolf stuff was scarier, because it seemed a lot more random in the beginning (which, sadly, it actually was).

>And: getting rid of Mickey when he just started to be fun! I?m going to miss him!

Agreed. He annoyed me no end in the first series (and I DETEST that scene in Rose where he’s transformed into a dummy or whatever), but he grew on me a lot in the second.

Episode 2×07 – The Idiot’s Lantern

On the good:

- Telly talking to you. I mean, YOU. I love it when that happens.
- Telly doing holographic hex vision.
- Faceless people. I love it.
- Rose clearly had fun talking to Eddie Connolly, and so did we.
- The special effect of the creature looking out of the telly was very nice.

On the rest:

- And there was us thinking the lantern’s idiot could be Mickey.
- Faceless people. I love it. No wait. HOW?
- The Wire looking out of the telly… HOW?
- Another villain decides to give away its plan before trying to kill its enemies. They never learn!
- I thought they gave away the creature’s motivation too early (“So hungry!). Would have been nice to be left wondering for a little longer what sort of conspiracy was going on…
- And we don’t know too much about The Wire, where it came from, what sort of being it was… I don’t suppose it matters much but that’s still a bit sad.

On zombies:

- Last time, metal zombies. This time, telly zombies. Zombies zombies zombies.

On the Doctor:

- He’s alright. Sometimes gets on my nerves a bit with the shouting, especially in “heureka” moments. But he’s alright.

On Torchwood:

- Apparently Torchwood is all over the media and every little police officer talks about it. Then no wonder the PM has heard of it. So how come that in Rose’s present it is quite suddenly supposed to be ONE BIG SECRET?

And all in all:

Nice (though historically probably totally irrelevant) little “fun” episode that made no sense whatsoever but was very entertaining nonetheless, and also very visual. I liked it.

As for the faceless people, that was really creepy wasn’t it?

I’d like to know how they continued to breathe though. Wire magic, no doubt. ;)

>I?m going to rank it between the good episodes I enjoyed and the excellent Moffat ones, all the way up there.

That’s pretty much how most of us tend to think of that two-parter, I think. You may have noticed that there’s a pattern to each series, in the sense that there’s a “blockbuster two-parter” early on (wide, accessible story with big monsters), and then a more “adult two-parter” later (as with The Empty Child last year). Most people will generally agree that the adult two-parters present pretty much the best the show has to offer – you’re in for a treat when you get to next year’s, let me tell you.

Yeah, I’m already looking forward (a bit too much) to… everything. I’ve got series three here, but I will eventually get to a point where I cannot watch two new episodes each weekend.

TOO SOON.

By the way, David Tennant’s German voice makes him sound younger and even a bit hotter. Oooh.

Okay, so – the “good reason”.

Basically, the way the production “year” is structured and scheduled is for a 13 episode run. But since they introduced the Christmas specials, they’re basically doing 14 episodes in a 13 episode time frame.

Soooo, each year from series two onwards, there’s what we call the “Doctor-lite” episode. It’s an episode shot simultaneously with another one, that requires little time from the lead actors. Love & Monsters is the first example, it’s a shame you didn’t like it (I love it) but it IS a very divisive episode in terms of fan opinion.

Incidentally, series three’s Doctor-lite episode is THE BEST THING THAT HAS BEEN ON TV EVER. So all hope is not lost ;-)

Oh, and the monster? Designed by an eight-year-old for a kids’ TV competition ;-)

Portrayal of fandom?

Eeep, be careful! That article contains end-of-series-two spoilers!

I’ll keep the link for next week, then… :)

You twat, Hoare.

I like Love and Monsters a lot, but it does divide people. Still, I’ll take experimental stuff like that over bog-standard run-and-explode stuff like the cybermen two-parter.

Again, there’s also a big Buffy influence – The Zeppo and Storyteller, showing the hero from an outside perspective. (A series two ep of Buffy also sees the heroine turned into a rat to help the actresses schedule.) It’s how Mickey Smith’s side of the fence looked.

It’s a story about being a fan. Which is a bit of a theme in New Who. Rose is a cypher for the audience, the viewer who gets to join the adventure. And ‘ Do you wanna come with me?’ was a cornerstone of the series one ad campaign.

Nice… both of them reviews…

Hm, yeah. You’re right with everything you wrote there. And I didn’t think the episode stinks. I liked it. But I liked all of the other ones more. Except maybe “Aliens of London”, and possibly “Rose” (but I’m not even sure about that).

> It?s a story about being a fan. Which is a bit of a theme in New Who. Rose is a cypher for the audience, the viewer who gets to join the adventure. And ? Do you wanna come with me?? was a cornerstone of the series one ad campaign.

But hasn’t that been the purpose of the companions all along?

I’m totally confused and entirely a-ha! at the same time! Good job Andrew!

Ah, today is one of those days where I just love everyone around me. :)

Love & Monsters is one of the episodes that I’ve never got round to re-watching. I liked the idea but it was nowhere near as smart as it thought it was.

>Incidentally, series three?s Doctor-lite episode is THE BEST THING THAT HAS BEEN ON TV EVER. So all hope is not lost ;-)

This is bang on the money. You are in for one hell of a treat, Marleen.

Please do!

So!

Episode 2×11 – Fear Her

I liked a lot:

- Drawings.
- Animated doodle!! I want one!! It’s almost as cute as Tron’s bit!!
- Closet monster coming to life. Like DoodleBob. Yeah.

Random observations:

- The episode was scary alright, but not quite as scary as the title suggested.
- The alien was very Star Trek: TNG. :)
- Trish? Vaguely familiar? I had to look it up, but hey, she was in Love Actually.

Zombies:

- Doodle zombies :)

Torchwood:

- There was no mention of Torchwood in it, was there? … odd… maybe the calm before the storm…

Overall:

- This episode’s only catch is that it is, plot-wise, so close to The Idiot’s Lantern. People scream out of a telly, people scream out of a drawing. Of the two, I prefer the drawing. I thought it was really cute, and maybe something cute is needed just before the series finale. It was heartbreaking when Rose said in the end “never ever…” of course in an ideal world I would not know that Billie left Who after series two. But as I don’t know whether she dies or falls through a time hole or marries Mickey or just decides to spend some more time with Jackie, I’m really anxious and worried now. And the worst thing is – I can’t watch any Who next weekend. So there is a lot of time for being worried and anxious.

I’d rather watch Fear Her twice than Voyage Of The Damned at all

> Gah. Fear Her. Hate hate hate. Worst episode of New Who. By miles.

Please explain

> Fear Her has many good qualities. APPRECIATE THEM.

It sets Ten up as not being a cat person, which is WRONGE. Good job Gridlock fixed that.

But it’s courage and it’s love!

Like the torch, the cupboard, the scribble and the whispered alien voice.

And I adore: the TARDIS materialising inconveniently, Rose halting the Doctor from dipping into the marmalade, and the lengthy multi-character conversation in the street. One of my favourite dialogue sequences of New Who.

> the TARDIS materialising inconveniently

Yeah, that was great :D

SHE’S MADE A BLOODY CHART!!! :-D

> And there was me thinking that the genesis thingy contained the Master (another something that I SHOULD NOT BE KNOWING ABOUT at this point)

It wasn’t until you started series two that I realised how badly the packaging ruins the finale. The Daleks were kept as a total surprise on broadcast – it was going to be a cyber-ending, so far as we knew – and, obviously, you knew they were coming from the moment you looked at the box. A shame.

> And the girl working at Torchwood?s for the Cybermen, I thought it was Martha, but obviously not.

Same actress. There’s a simple explanation – which you’ll eventually get to.

Weirdly I watched these same two episodes LAST NIGHT. Freaky…

But I will miss Jackie most, I think! Anyway – parallel earth, parallel Torchwood – I wondered after Rise of the Cybermen already, where?s the parallel TARDIS with its parallel Doctor?

I’m not sure how much of explaining this is spoilers, so I think it’s alright to do so. The idea is that there’s only one set of Time Lords – they can traverse parallel universes, but they’ll never interact with themselves (uh, apart from when they cross their own timelines) because there’s only ever one version. So in the parallel universe, there’s no Doctor. The reason for Torchwood’s existence (again, I can’t remember where this was stated) is apparently that, because he wasn’t there to save her, Queen Victoria was killed by the werewolf. Torchwood was set up to battle alien threats from that point onwards.

>Speaking of which, should I watch Torchwood next or series three of Who?

It doesn’t matter too much. If you have Torchwood, you might as well watch it first. Minor spoiler bellow (I’m leaving out plot stuff and details though so it shouldn’t spoil your enjoyment..)
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[spoiler]
Certain episodes of series 3 happen after Torchwood from a certain character’s point of view. Certain blanks in this character’s history are filled in this series of Doctor Who. However, if you watch Dr. Who first, it won’t spoil the main plot of either show.

Hope that was vague enough.;)

Indeed.

Watch the first episode and, maybe, the last couple of episodes (which – slightly – leads into the season three finale of Doctor Who) but I really wouldn’t bother with the rest of it.

The first episode hinted at potential that has yet to be realised. The second season is slightly better, but not by much.

I don’t like honey either.

Since the option are a) buy the series one box or b) leave it, I’ll be going with b).

I can catch up on Torchwood once I run out of Who episodes (which will be too soon anyway).

While so far it’s been an overall miss for Torchwood, there HAVE been good episodes (Ian’s dead wrong – They Keep Killing Suzy is pretty good for a kick-off).

But it’s not a full-price purchase, frankly. Worth seeing the best eps if they ever appear on iTunes or whatever, though – if that ever happens, get a list from here!

Convinced that the best thing about They Keep Killing Suzie is the title.

I thought Combat was one of the best in terms of tone and character writing. I wish Noel Clarke had written more. Whereas Random Shoes was pants.

Small Worlds was okay, but the script makes a huge error in having the team do literally nothing to affect the outcome.

O_O

Episode 3×00 – The Runaway Bride

On the episode:
- Opening: Great opening.
- Monster: Fantastic monster! She was beautiful! For something as clich? and been-there as a spiderwoman, she did quite stun me. Didn’t look too cgi. Love the eyes.
- Science: Bler. As much as I appreciate ANCIENT magical energy forms, did it have to be golden glitter again? LOOK, it’s clearly Huon energy! Never mind that it looks exactly like nanogenes, or TARDIS dust, or, probably, most other things in Who ;)
- Ending: Good ending.

On Catherine Tate:
- I LIKED HER IN THIS EPISODE. A LOT. I THOUGHT SHE WAS PERFECT. There, I said it. Donna was twice as entertaining as she was annoying and the role must’ve been written especially for Catherine Tate to work so well. I’m looking forward to seeing more of her in series four. My only apology is that I have not had to sit through the so-called Catherine Tate Show that you lot so despise. Apart from one or two Lauren Cooper clips and the special one with David Tennant.

On the Doctor:
- Oh, he can look sooo hurt and lonely. It’s sad that he had to lose Rose before I could see that so clearly in him. Anyway, yes, I like him now.

On zombies:
- No zombies, only robots, alas, remote-controlled ones, so maybe zombots.

On christmas specials:
- Preferred this one to The Christmas Invasion, and by miles. I just thought it was more entertaining and not QUITE as silly. Well, hm, the spiderwench and Ms Tate really did it for me I guess.

>Not me, I quite liked her show as well. It got old quite quickly though as a lot of her humor was based on repetitive catch-phrases. (Loren?s ?Am I bovvered!? being one that is referenced a lot.) There were some great characters in her show. The Gran being a good example. And the ginger gags made me chuckle in their silliness.

Get out

Really? That’s impressive. So they just used the CG for the candles on the cake so to speak. A good use of the medium. (Not that I’m against intensive CGI if it’s good…)

I just meant CGI was used for the final touches. I.e. the candles on the cake being the blinking spider eyes. Not the eyes themselves, the blinking effect. That was certainly CG, utilised in a subtle but highly effective, and freaky way.

Yeah, I quite liked both those episodes (although I’m not sure the magic stuff in the Elizabethan one quite fitted with the genre… even if it is essentially another science. Great villains though.)

As for the one with the Judoon, I thought the Judoon were great new aliens too. One thing that bugged me about that episode was that stuff about irradiating half the earth utilizing a bit of equipment in a room in the hospital. (It’s been a while so I can’t remember the specifics, radiography, X-ray machine, whatever.) I just thought they were a little TOO silly. I’d just about buy that the overload would harm the folks in the hospital, and while that’d be smaller stakes, it would still be more than enough for the heroics.

As for Martha, yeah I quite like her too. How did you consider Freema’s acting though?

Oh and good point concerning the cousin thing. It’s ploy often used in drama though. You can always get round it by imagining they actually look different, just like imagining bad effects look good. ;)

Now, let’s see what we have here…

Episode 3×01 – Smith and Jones

On the episode:
- Liked the rain effect.
- Liked the baddie (kind of cheesy but good).
- LOVED the Rhinos (kind of VERY cheesy but extremely good! Only Doctor Who or The Fifth Element could pull this off!).
- And the thing we massively loved most: the Judoons marking humans with edding crosses.
- I tink there were a couple of great lines in the script, but I can’t remember them now!
- Anyways, good episode, for something not being the series’ highlight or finale or of other extraordinary relevance, and with the cheese factor it has.

On Martha:
- Well, she is kind of sweet.
- She’s also… a bit of a swot.
- Hmpf. (Translation: It’s not your fault but… get your fingers off my Doctor)
- You said there was an explanation for Martha looking exactly like Adeola in “Army of Ghosts”. A random “I had a cousin…” is NOT a valid explanation. It’s lame. I reckon they really really wanted Freema Agyeman for the role, but I wish they’d come up for a better explanation than that. It’s Doctor Who, they could’ve made up ANYTHING. “Cousin” is really lazy. Also, you usually don’t look exactly like your cousin and not very much like your own sister.

On the Doctor:
- Loved him in this episode.

On zombies:
- Leather biker zombies. Harr.

All in all:
- I enjoyed it immensely. Vin, too. We enjoyed it so much that we watched another episode there and then. Or maybe that was because I’m rather ill and so I could make three wishes (I had wished for some (real, proper) cheese and a hot chocolate before). I think I just made that rule up. Worked really well, too.

Episode 3×02 – The Shakespeare Code

This episode:
- You know by now that I do rather like “costume” type episodes, i.e. ones playing in the past. Lovely views of Elizabethan London.
- Ancient magic, someone banned at the beginning of the universe, so they’re just a legend, of course only until they try to set the rest of their kind free, who’re encaged somewhere on Earth, wait a minute, did we not just see that story two episodes ago? Ah heck, anyway, it was fun.
- Really loved the olde English being made funny. “I told thee so!” Tee hee hee.
- Some good Shakespeare jokes, but then it became too many Shakespeare jokes.
- Speaking of Shakespeare. Excuse me, I didn’t quite get it… what did you just say he was? A genius? Ohhhh, he is a genius, blah blah. He’s even more of a swot than Martha. Nauseating! There’s nothing wrong with a little praise but him bypassing the psychic paper was OTT.
- Other than that, nicely written, I enjoyed many of the lines, so I can only speak for myself, but I would say: great script!
- But: what’s with the Harry Potter references? SICK! (I love Harry Potter, by the way, but mixing two different fictional universes together… that makes me kind of queasy…)
- Other literary references: the title, the thing with the true names, … hmm, have I missed any more? Probably.
- Heh, the Doctor is not getting on with ANY of the female rulers of the UK, is he? First Harriet, then Vicky, now Liz. If I were him, I’d move to France where lady leaders adore him. Looking forward to any further episodes revealing why Elizabeth hates him so. Might this be this series’ mystery arc? Maybe not, although I’d like that.
- Author, author! I looked him up and imdb said he also wrote something to do with a unicorn and a wasp for series four. Oooooh, I’m looking forward to that one.

Zombies:
- Voodooly controlled ones.

All in all:
- Vin found it to be average or even below, I myself rather liked the episode. What a fun ride. Also, I think I don’t mind Martha. She’s still a bit bland, but then, so was Rose (for me) in the beginning.

It’s still on the FIX LIST. I’m sure John will get to after he’s finished r… OH, WHOOPS, BETTER NOT MENTION THAT.

As long as I don’t get accused of spoiling. I was responding to episodes reviewed, honest! ;)

Episode 3×03 – Smith and Jones

The episode:
- Oooh, dystopia. Brazil-esque emo drug dealers, Dark City-like microcosm of infinite motorways, I like it.
- Lol, Irish cat. Waiiiit a minute, I know that voice! And seriously, I can’t believe I recognised Ardal O’Hanlon under that cat face. Still. What a lovely accent. <3
- The rest of the secondary characters were great as well.
- Crabs feeding off smog. Fair enough. Although after we’ve just seen spiders and rhinos, I wouldn’t have minded if they’d used aliens that don’t look like they belong in Earth’s fauna. (They used to be a real thread some billions of years ago… yawn…)
- I was hoping to hear something more… profound from good ol’ Face of Boe. The Doctor was hoping to hear nothing at all from the Face of Boe. Why?
- Wish I didn’t know about the Master, although I must admit I didn’t really think of him, not until Vin said “Will the other remaining time lord be good or evil then, whad do you think?”
- I THINK if I would care to start looking, I’d find some MAJOR plot holes in there. I am trying very very hard though to not look. Successfully so, so far.
- All in all, good episode! Series three is coming along rather well!

Doctor X:
- Stop being a jerk.

Martha:
- I feel more and more sorry for Martha each episode. She’s begging to get her heart broken. Poor girl.

*sigh*

- The other secondary characters (the old ladies etc) were great, too.
- I was hoping to hear something more profound from good old Face of Boe. The Doctor was hoping to hear nothing at all from the Face of Boe. Why? Also: I wish I didn’t know about the Master. But I really didn’t make the connection until Vin said to me: “so, is this other remaining time lord good or evil, what do you think?”
- Smog-eating crabs, fair enough. But after the spiders and rhinos, it would have been kinda nice to see creatures that don’t look like Earth’s fauna.
- All in all: good episode. Series three is really nice so far.

Doctor X:
- Oh, stop being a jerk.

Martha:
- I feel more and more sorry for her with each new episode. She’s begging to get her heart broken. Poor girl.

> (Translation: It?s not your fault but? get your fingers off my Doctor)

*remembers Marleen’s response to Eccleston and chuckles*

Oh, and I’m very fond of the Judoon myself. They’re exactly what you might expect of galactic security guards.

Just found this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2008/whatson/2707.shtml

And now I’m crying big wet tears of not-canning-to-go because it’s, like, this Sunday.

Yeah, I would. Except, I would’ve booked flights two months ago and arranged for crashing on someone’s floor. Although, as this is taking place mid-day, maybe I could fly home the same day. In any case, it’s too expensive now. EUR 270 for the flights (if booked today), per person.

Those ‘American’ accents made me feel like wincing (particularly the dance girl) although cheesy stuff amuses me too. I’m perverse like that.

Good reconstruction of central park though. Not that I’ve go anything to base that on, having never been there but it looked good.

Still remains my favourite Dalek episode of the new series. Yes, I know I’m in the minority.

I just found it to be the most atmospheric and the most like Dalek stories of old – particularly Pertwee era like Day of the Daleks.

Then it’ll go shit again.

Why was that deleted?

I say “shit”…it’s not the same as other shit. “Shit” Doctor Who is still wonderful. :)

>?Shit? Doctor Who is still wonderful. :)

42 and The Doctor’s Daughter disagree with you.

Interesting. I liked The Moffat Times-Table and rather enjoyed reading that article. Didn’t agree with a lot of it though.

I love 42! The only episodes I have difficulty watching now are Aliens of London / World War 3…and maybe Boom Town. Oh, and Fear Her.

I liked Boom Town.

And shhhh about 42, I’m watching it next weekend. ta :)

Oh, I can’t wait until you get to episode eight… reading this thread got me thinking about it again today, and I got a big warm fuzzy feeling. I might have to watch it again soon. Looking at the Paul Cornell interview we did for NTS, I realised we didn’t ask him a single question about it – the Who stuff was mainly focused on Father’s Day – and that’s a shame, there’s plenty I would have liked to have brought up…

Oh I told Ian to comment on this…

Smog-eating crabs, fair enough. But after the spiders and rhinos, it would have been kinda nice to see creatures that don?t look like Earth?s fauna.

As he’d have explained it better than me, but as he’s rubbish and hasn’t bothered I’ll try my best!
The Macra have been previously featured in classic Who – In 1967 they appeared with the Second Doctor. So it was quite a geeky, fanboy moment when they were revealed.
Ian was *very* excited.

>Looking at the Paul Cornell interview we did for NTS

Say whaaaat?

Episode 3×07 – 42

About the episode:
- It was a bit like the “Impossible Planet” two-parter, wasn’t it, but stripped of anything interesting?
- The TARDIS was messed up. I really worry now, it looks like it’ll come apart any minute (after all the abuse!)… Doctor had better get the duct tape ready…
- The ship was messed up. Who would put some pushbuttons on the outside of a spacecraft?
- The science was messed up.
- Apart from the happy primes. I admit I had to look those up, the happy numbers, because I couldn’t make any sense of what the Doctor said there, despite subtitles ,rewind and slow-mo – I just don’t have the mecessary English math slang handy. But anyway. Happy numbers, cool stuff.

About Martha:
- Martha kicks ass. But… Vin finds her boring. And he has a point. He thinks she’s too similar to Rose. Of course she is someone else. But for example in this particular episode, it could’ve been Rose doing all the running and scfreaming and it would’ve been the same episode, essentially. When I asked him what he had in mind for a companion, he said, someone from the middleages or the future or an alien or someone with a nasty secret of their own, just, different! (And I’d like to point out that he knows less about Who than I do, nothing about classic Who in fact, and hasn’t read Lawrence Miles’ rants either.)

About zombies:
- Sun zombies. That’s new!

- Series three arc: tightens and is actually interesting.

Overall impression:
- I’d expected worse. Come on, it was too constructed, below-average and apart from the phone calls mostly irrelevant, but not outright shit. If that’s the lowest point of series three, it’s still happytime.

>…someone from the middleages or the future…

I’m gonna delurk for a moment to say that I think this would be awesome if it ever happened. It happened a couple of times in the classic series, for instance. I might even start downloadin–WATCHING it again for that. Also, I think Classic Who featured an alien assistant for a while, a guy named Vislor Turlough. (Haven’t seen anything featuring him yet, however.)

Leela the savage girl *g*

Episode 3×08 – Human Nature
Episode 3×09 – Family of Blood

Whilst I’m sitting here enjoying some almost-live Doctor Who music (the internet is a wonderful thing) (although being there would be so much better) I can just as well type up my and Vin’s impressions of series three’s way-into-the-series-two-parter. I’d been warned this would be good! And it was good!

The good:
- Nice setup. You didn’t even wonder whether it made sense at all because you (that means I) was occupied with loving the setup. Vin’s comment, a minute into the episode: “See? It was all a dream! I knew it!!”
- Oh look, it’s Paul Cornell, who I’d never heard of until two days ago.
- David Tennant can act.
- David Tennant knows how to make a sweet face.
- The way the scarecrows moved.
- Oh, with Harry Lloyd they did find themselves an actor there who can look quite, quite mad. (Loved the staring at first, but by the end it became a bit annoying to be honest.)
- Tom Sangster is one cute little bugger. Eh heh heh.
- The watch was nicely done. Even though it was just a prop and some sound effects, I could definitely feel the timelord. Very… dense… thing.
- Loved his journal.
- Loved the watch.
- Can’t decide wich I loved more.
- Epic ending, wasn’t it, with the Doctor punishing all four of them until the end of time. Not their fault he’d fallen in love. I’m scared now.

The bad:
- The episode should’ve ended with Doctor and Martha leaving. The memorial stuff, well, it was a sentimental ending which is fair enough, but there’d also already been John Smith seeing his possible life as a human, which was also sentimental, and Baines’ monologue about the Doctor locking them away, which was epic, and I thought it was a bit much in the end. Or maybe it’s also because I don’t feel comfortable with the poppy stuff. We don’t have veterans, remeberance days or every-day patriotism as such in Germany, except I suppose in the context of football. Anyway…
- Also, a bit of a waste of little Timmy there, they could’ve done so much more with that character, maybe in future episodes, and, well, hasn’t that been a bit ruined by the ending? Shame.

The miscellaneous:
- Very evil of the writer to make the Doctor very human (look, he’s actually up for grabs) for an episode or two (oh no, sorry, he isn’t after all). Very hard on the fangirls. I’m glad I’m a bit older than 14, or it’d broken my heart to see this.
- When the cliffhanger moment comes, I just say, like, “ooohhh grmmmmph cliffhanger, sorry honey, we’ll have to watch another episode right away.” I can do that. How do YOU cope? Having to wait a week for the resolution?

Martha:
- Poor Martha.

The zombies:
- Animated scarecrows, a classic.

The series three epic:
- There wasn’t anything in the episode, was there?

I missed it??!!

Trying not to spoil anything…

Watch on. All will become clear.
EDIT- Whoops Andrew beat me. (Now my post is superfluous.)

Who would have thought all this vicarious whoing and froing would be so enjoyable?

Well, it scared the bejesus out of a lot of viewers (me included) and had a seriously cute heroine, so that’s probably why it’s so popular. Also ‘Wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey’ kind of sums up the whole history of Doctor Who, so maybe you need to be a fan to appreciate that one.

Episode 3×11 – Utopia
Episode 3×12 – The Sound of the Drums
Episode 3×13 – Last of the Time Lords

Whoaaaa… !

We loved the following:
- Jack is back!
- Chantho was kinda cute.
- From “Utopia”, the Master business… (although I don’t see why his DNA-hiding-thingy had to be a fobwatch…)
- The Master, ooh he is quite, quite mad.
- Gallifrey scenes. Spectacular.
- You Are Not Alone
- I stopped the DVD right when Jack said he grew up in Boe-something and discussed this with Vin. When we continued with the DVD, it was given away right 10 seconds into it. Haha. Lovely. Face of Boe stuff, we loved.
- The Doctor and the Master, the whole forgiveness thing, the Doctor once again losing someone, ah, heartbreaking… well… in a good way. I’m selfish like that.
- Epicness!

And these things we also quite liked:
- Knew the Master would find a way to cheat. I thought he’d regenerate on the stake as soon as burnt up, but the ring’s fair enough, really. However, it MAKES one wonder why he used the obvious fobwatch in the first place.
- Darth Maul amongst the savages :p
- Turning the TARDIS into a paradox machine is better than no explanation, at least.
- The spheres from the future.
- The TARDIS trying to shake off Jack The Impossible. (But how come she didn’t mind him anymore later when the Doctor invited him to tag along?)
- “Master is our friend” Hahahaha. And later the Gandalf reference.
- So, the Doctor and the Master chose their nicknames. (Vin and I discussed that, too, and elaborated that we’re The Hamster and The Geek.)

Not so much maybe:
- The savages from “Utopia”.
- And the fact that they weren’t spoken of anymore during the second and third episode.
- The Doctor macgyvering the giant rocket in a matter of seconds.
- The Doctor becoming the glowing angelic saviour through the faith of every human. Hehe. Okay, I didn’t mind it THAT much.
- It seems that I’ve listened to “This is Gallifrey” too much on youtube; I kept recognising the music in the background, almost always NOT while Gallifrey was on screen, so this distracted me a bit.

Random stuff Vin noticed:
- UNIT, the American Torchwood… Vin thinks there might’ve been a mystery series called UNIT that wasn’t very good, I’ll have to check that out!

Overall impression:
- When I watched the first few episodes of Who I was so happy about all the relations between the episodes, all the references back to stuff we’d already seen. Now my head’s spinning from it. You do have to memorise everything ever said, don’t you, because it could well be slapped into your face at some point later in time. Lovely!
- It wasn’t as emotional as The Parting of the Ways (I still love The Ninth Doctor…) or even as the series two finale. But it sure was FUN TO WATCH. So I’d put it in my list, hm, somewhere pretty close to, but below, The Parting of the Ways. Vin says for him this was the best series finale so far. We loved it.
- I’m all doctored up now and I must say, I’m almost a little glad I will have a break now until November. I will most likely change my mind about that soon (probably tomorrow morning in front of the telly when we won’t have any Who to watch with our breakfast).

> ?some titanic series finale?

Yeah, lol.

> The Futurekind were one huge MacGuffin – just a means to an end. Watching it all in one go and expecting one long three-part story could bugger this up a bit, and I can see why you?d be disappointed.

That is brilliant! And I’m not disappointed as such, it’s okay really, under these circumstances I can completely accept them.

>> UNIT, the American Torchwood

> Interesting that you got that impression! Obviously, there?s a lot of backstory you?re not aware of, so it didn?t even occur to me that anyone would draw that conclusion from their brief appearances here.

Aha, so obviously we’re wrong.

Right! So! Series four arrived! And thanks to Amazon’s low price guarantee, I saved a total of 0,01 GBP, too. My sister commented: “Grats. Don’t spend it all at once!” And that will be very, very hard to do.

Anyway, seen the christmas special this morning, “Voyage of the Damned”. Is anyone here still interested in “Likes/Dislikes”, cause otherwise I’ll just say: I liked it; slightly better than the other christmas specials too… or, hm, the same as The Runaway Bride probably. But the Doctor should really stop womanising. This part really anbnoyed me. Kylie: “Can I come?” Doctor: “Sure!” Old man: “Can I come?” Doctor: “Uhm… nah. I travel alone.”

Anyway, good fun, and I’ll be watching a lot more Who during the next weeks!

> I?m still interested in your massive lists, by the way!

Ditto and likewise!

I need to se VotD again. Haven’t seen it since broadcast, cos I like to save the specials, at least, for the arrival of the boxset. But as I’m a sucker for disaster movies, I imagine I’ll enjoy it just as much the second time around. Not the best cross-breeding of genres in Who, but good, knockabout fun for Christmas.

Episode 4×01 – Partners in Crime

You know what I really like about Who? The sheer number of “what the fuck” moments. Even after three entire series, they still manage to wtf me.

What we liked

- Good beginning, in the cubicles.
- The scene with the Doctor and Martha lip-reading was hilarious.
- Donna was good. Really. Looking back, Martha was a bit of a bore. She was cute and everything, but Martha’s moaning is so much more entertaining.
- Share my body fat with aliens so that they can have babies while I get healthier? Yes please! I’d like to godmother two or three of the little buggers. And I’m sure most overweight people would. Why didn’t they just ask, then?
- Martha’s granddad was cute. I think old men in Who are always either supercute or supervillains.
- Hatbox

What we didn’t like

- Why did the Doctor bin the sonic pen? Could’ve given it to Donna, or even keep it as a spare so he wouldn’t have to lend his to random redshirts anymore…

OMFG Observation

- TEH ROSE! Series arc surely?

All in all

As far as episodes with little fat blobs go (i.e. not-so-serious, slightly ridiculous plots) – this was really really good.

> think you mean Donna?s,

Oh, right, sorry.
Ahh! I think I even recognised him as the newsvendor and just didn’t think about it. Brilliant!

Although… sad bit of information at the same time.

> Martha

Donna! Donna! Donna! Argh.

ALL THREE OF YOU ARE CATEGORICALLY WRONG.

I agree with Pete, although I think she’s quite good in places in Big Train.

Episode 4×02 – The Fires of Pompeii

This will be incomplete because we watched last night already, but here we go…

What we liked:

- Wheeee, colourful costumes!
- The modern family clich?s (were easy to please like that) and all the stuff with the house gods and everything
- Positions!
- Donna was okay
- Good wtf moment when the other guy said “Gallifrey”
Edit: and the Sybillines eyes-on-hands-thingie looked cool.

What we didn’t like:

- Maybe slightly too much modern language?
- Maybe Donna was bickering a little too much?
- Pyrovile, cheap name for a cheap monster.
- Some stuff was too obvious (house gods joke in the end, the Doctor blowing up Vesuv)
- Lazy plot resolution (in parts anyway; like, “oh by the way since the time’s up any minute now, there was a rift in time but it’s fixed now no more procognition thanks bye”)

What, uhm, puzzled us:

- The science seemed to be even more messed up than usual. Like… circuits carved out of marble. I’m pretty sure energy conversaion doesn’t work like that. Not even if the marble’s green. The slabs looked pretty though. I’d like one for me wall.
- I didn’t like how they tried to explain how the TARDIS translation feature works, because it rises even more questions, the answer to which is: this doesn’t actually work at all.
- I thought the TARDIS couldn’t be moved? How could the bloke sell it, then?

Didn’t think it was bad, just not excellent. Who has high pretty standards after all. I felt entertained :)

Yes, I think one of the characteristics of the TARDIS’ chameleon circuit is that it also takes on the physical characteristics of what it’s disguised as.

>Not even if the marble?s green.

This made me laugh. I like to laugh.

Ooooh, there was a mini episode? Damn. I’ll look it up, thanks for the hint!

We can keep it up – after all I’m still very virgin when it comes to old Who and my perspective is still very German. Not to mention lack of BBC access…

Eps. 4 & 5, The Sontaran Stratagem & The Poison Sky

Good things:

- Good aliens. From the old series, yes? We liked them.
- We like Donna’s family. Not as much as Rose’s, but they’re still nice.
- Wunderkind’s supersect school for the gifted; and also himself (the character). Aww, tragic little geek.
- The blank clone
- Hey, side characters with names (like, Ross)! Liked them, too.
- I really like it when characters from earlier series appear (seemingly) randomly; makes everything seem more real.
- Donna was, again, good.

Bad things:

- When they actually fought, the Sontar weren’t as powerful as we thought they were going to be…
- Martha’s clone was annoying.
- Too many times an episode’s resolution involves the Doctor fusing two cables or pointing the sonic screwdriver at something.

Misc things:

- OMFG ROSE AGAIN! I am excited…
- UNIT. They were mentioned in an earlier series 4 episode already I think. Well, what are they then, the Men in Black of Whoniverse? Not so different from Torchwood Institute…

I thought it was definitely more fun to watch than the other “early series two parters”.

Marleen, did you get round to watching ‘Time Crash’ yet?

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4I76p1cZbq4

If only Marleen had access to some form of shiny round disc upon which could be stored the video content in question.

Curse you, sluggish development of technology! ;-)

Curse the fact I watch wrestling. TLC in my head now defaults as tables, ladders and chairs. Of course I’ve known one or two girls who like that kind of thing.

or indeed The Living Channel, the old satellite lifestyle channel.

Or RAC, the breakdown company.

Look, when there are 6 new posts in this thread, and the last one is by Marleen herself, I expect there to be UPDATES. Stop messing around, people.

I really mean that.

*you’re* an off-topic discussion

> *you?re* an off-topic discussion

No capital letter. No full stop.

You don’t like me, do you?

After you with the “No comment” sir.

And so we open up the ‘What old Who should Marleen be watching once she’s done with series four?’ question.

ONE story per person, please, or we’ll blow her frightened German mind…

> Genesis. Obviously.

Gabriel or Collins?

I probably haven’t seen enough old Who to give an informed answer but I did get ‘City of Death’ DVD with Tom Baker’s doctor from the library a few months back. I rather enjoyed it, and I understand it’s a fan favorite.

The Curse Of Fenric

Just one? Shit.

But since Tanya’s already suggested a good story with a great Doctor and assistant, I’ll chip in with “Carnival of Monsters” (if you can get it. Is it available?) It’s one of the shorter Third Doctor stories, and I recall it being rather fun to watch.

We should just do one for each Doctor, really.

Or someone could put up one poll for each Doctor. Actually, I’d like that.

> Although if you watched the first, An Unearlthy Child, you?d see my grandma?s cousin! Have I mentioned that one enough?

Actually, I’ve not heard that one…

> Actually, I?ve not heard that one?

http://uk.imdb.com/name/nm0153278/

She’s most famous for Sam, I think, but looking at that list she’s got some impressive credits on there!

>She?s most famous for Sam, I think, but looking at that list she?s got some impressive credits on there!

She was really good. She’s easily the most committed actor in both her Dr Who stories.

Hur: He told me his name…
Za: Name?
Hur: Yes. His name is “Friend.”

The Doctor’s Daughter

What I liked:

- Colourful aliens. Like a cross-breed of goldfish and parrots.

What I hated:

Since I can’t include THE ENTIRE SCRIPT, I’m going to give a few examples:

- All the dialogue, including the two attempts at comedy.
- Even the dialogue of the Hath, because the bubbling started to get on my nerves quickly.
- Martha was awful in this episode.
- Donna was… not particularly good in this episode.
- Hated everything about Jenny, despite her cute looks.
- THE DOCTOR was awful in this episode. But let’s start at the beginning…
- So. From the title, I was expecting a certain degree of epicness, and what I got was… the opposite.
- The Doctor’s daughter is not his daughter, but his clone.
- And she was cloned complete with clothes on and a dramatic eyeliner applied. Clearly the eyeliner is vital in battle.
- Jenny for generated? Why not Annie for anomaly?
- She also was cloned with leet war skillz and nothing else. Oh wait, except for leet knowledge abotu how to seduce a teenage soldier, as well as a concept of heterosexual relationship. In a society that breeds exclusively by cloning. Good job.
- Is General Cobb supposed to be a settler, or a clone? Because he is, quite clearly, at least in his fifties, but doesn’t remember the week before last.
- Jenny aka Little Miss Obvious: “Close the door.” “They’re coming.” et cetera…
- She may be cute and she may be of more royal Who ancestorage than Cappsy, but she can’t act. Sorry.
- Jenny hopping through the lasers: Blaaaaaaaaaaah. Seen this executed 300 times better. In a Britney Spears video.
- Martha’s Hath being Little Mister Obvious by jumping into a pool of wet quicksand like the redshirt he is in order to provide some emotional drama. It doesn’t work.
- Donna works out the numbers. Weeee! Question: they keep seeing numbers that are mostly the same. How does that mean that it is dates? Another question: they see a number that is digital. How does that mean that it is TODAY’s date?
- The creation myth & the terraforming device: not original.
- The typical golden glitter: not original.
- Everyone admiring the golden glitter and suddenly being friends: what the fuck? They’re easier to distract than me!
- Cobb trying to shoot the Doctor: yawn.
- Jenny stepping in front of him: yawn.
- Dramatical dying scene: yawn.
- Martha knowing all about the state Jenny’s in, with Jenny being Gallifreyan with two hearts, no blood anywhere (not even a hole in the shirt), no knowledge of whether a heart or the lung was hit… rubbish.
- And there’s still room for the low point of the episode. Martha: “She didn’t regenerate. She’s like you, but not enough.” Doctor: “She’s too much like me!” ehhhhhhh… what?
- Jenny waking up from the dead because of terraforming: yeah, like that makes sense. And: the peak of unoriginalness.
- An opportunity wasted to do something good with the Doctor, the family he lost, and a rampant teenage daughter (something that I actually think wouldn’t have had to be shit) = shit.

…

It’s shit. Really. It’s worse than Daleks in Manhattan. I hated every minute of it. In other news, I have PMS. I wanted to be fair, so I watched it a second time and tried to find things that I don’t hate. But it’s still shit.

I apologise to everyone who enjoyed this episode for the harsh words.

Indeed. What a piece of poo that was.

>Jenny for generated? Why not Annie for anomaly?

Heh! No, this ep didn’t live up to the hype at all…

I can’t do a big defence of TDD, because it simply isn’t a good enough episode to be worth the effort, but I found it had redeeming qualities that, for me, at least put it about The Lazarus Experiment.

Georgia Moffett – well, I thought she could act. That’s all. I also like how not-like-Rose she was, given that it would have been easy to just do a re-run of Rose’s Daddy issues.

I did like some of the comedy.

I’m very keen indeed on the questioning of the Doctor as a claimed pacifist as well as a defeater of monsters and bad people. Questions worth asking, especially when series four has been a little less Doctor-centric in its storytelling, and asked pretty well here.

Oh, and I like the sets.

Interesting to see that TheLeen had NONE of the problems understanding the ending that plagued forums and message boards immediately after broadcast. While a large number of people were bewildered by whether her revival was some kind of regeneration, Marleen – and old-school geek and Trek fan – went straight to ‘terraform revival’ with no hesitation. The rest of us got there, but the similarity of effect choice, and the lack of exposition, got in the way of the story for many.

> The POINT of whodunit type crime stories is that in the end, the reader (or viewer) could?ve worked out the solution themselves

One thing I adore about TUATW is that, when interviewed, only one character is shown to be telling a story consistent with their flashback. And, because of that – in retrospect, anyway – they can be the only one who is concealing something, the flashback being a fabrication based on their statement rather than a truth concealed BY their statement. I love the writing of that.

She’s fit and blond so it doesn’t matter.

> put it about The Lazarus Experiment.

I’m sorry, but I just don’t get the Lazarus hate. I watched the episode again the other week and I think I liked it even more. Where’s the equivalent pair of superb performances of Mark Gatiss and Thelma Barlow in TDD? Where’s the nice interweaving of the main series arc in TDD? Where’s the big, satisfying finale in TDD?

> everyone was too busy staring at her arse to notice. :-)

Also, I think her good work of series 3 counts in her favour a great deal.

Silence in The Library & Forest of the Dead

That’s more like it.

We loved:

- The first sentence: “Close your eyes and tell me what you see.” Best opening line ever.
- The last sentence: “Sweet dreams.” Good closing, too.
- Cute little girl with some amazing acting skills.
- Doctor Moon. Doctormoon. Good stuff.
- Donna & Lee. Awwwwwwwwww.
- River Song was a kind of awesome that scares me a little.
- Ghosting. Awesome.
- space suit skeleton zombies.
- Most of the dialogue, except when the Doctor took so long to work out that the woman knows him from his future.

There were however things (that I mainly noticed during the second viewing) that didn’t, well, that weren’t quite satisfactory. :x Here we go:

We wondered:

- I’d actually wondered how the Doctor’s past, present and future work – surely he must’ve bumped into future friends before…
- Yeah, books are made from wood. But you know what else is made from wood? Wood! Like the door that the Doctor said was made out of it. Or everything else in the library ;)
- The Doctor and CAL saved the expedition’s minds to the hard drive. Bless them. And now exactly why can’t CAL beam them down again now?
- Once more, death has been untimately defeated by science (see also: The Doctor’s Daughter and “How to become immortal by means of breahting in terraforming gases”)
- Soooo, the Doctor would never give anyone the Sonic Screwdriver; this would have been a good idea for the plot if it was actually the case. As it is, teh Doctor likes to hand his Screwdriver to average Joe, drop it off telegraph masts and so on; so far, he hasn’t been acting very protective of it, or at least that’s my impression.
- How did they know the Doctor couldn’t have survived the brain thing she did in the end?
- CAL is Mr Lux’ grandfather’s youngest daughter. That makes her Mr Lux’ aunt. The library has been closed for several generations. How can there be three generations between Mr Lux and his aunt, however little?
- How can the library have the kind of reputation needed to be THE Library (and something the Doctor knows) when it’s been available for the public so briefly? Opened up, quarantined for 100 years, Doctor appears, quarantined forever after…
- The Vashta Nerada had nothing to eat! Never had a taste of flesh from the day they hatched until the expedition came along!

Despite all this, I still think it’s two of the best episodes ever. Like I said earlier – if an episode is fun to watch, you don’t really care (and don’t want to care) about such things as minor inconsistencies…

Now, Mr Moffat. He’s created some damn fine episode scripts there. But I can’t really imagine an entire series’ worth of such episodes. You can’t keep up that level of personal drama for 13 episodes. And also, he can’t keep writing bigger, better love interests for the Doctor. :P

Will we see more of River Song, or Lee McAvoy in the future? Probably not. And that sucks. They’ll probably go the way of Elizabeth I and Jenny. River seems to have known him either with this face (which means he would have to meet her and go through a LOT of stuff with her during his current incarnation, which, as we sadly know through meta-knowledge, isn’t going to happen) or with a number of different faces (without really knowing their sort order, thus the diary check) and the Doctor has only three lives left (as far as we know right now). The latter is more likely, so the writers would have more time than for example, making Elizabeth’s scene in The Shakespeare Code make sense. You see the problem? The problem is that I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT THESE THINGS.

>I?m not the world?s most passionate guy

Lola. Lo-lo-lo-lo Lola. Lo-lo-lo lo Lolaahhhhh…

Jekyll suggests that Moffat-run Who being consistently great is far from definite. Also, with the pressure of running the series how likely is it that he can come up with something as good as TGITFP, Blink etc. ? OK RTD managed to throw in some real crackers of his own, but it was mainly his finales and opening eps, not to mention the Christmas eps, that held his concentration.

> If Moffat was going to do bad Who, It would have happened by now. Either in his episodes or in the magazine. I genuinely don?t believe the size of the task will have any relevance.

You got me wrong there – I think all of his episodes are brilliant, including Time Crash. I love the dialogue he writes. He manages to write lyrical stuff into all-day dialogue without making it sound corny and pretentious, just beautiful. His episodes are poetry.

I just thought – right now, his episodes have been (among) the highlights of every series. What is a series going to be like consisting of highlights? Would or wouldn’t it be TOO AWESOME? Like eating candy all day?

(I know he isn’t going to write every episode himself. But with luck, more of them than he has so far.)

What makes his episodes be awesome? The good (and very creative) storylines and the perfect texts.

What makes his episodes emotional rollercoaster rides? Increased creepiness, increased drama and increased Doctor lovelife.

I think series 6 of Who can do with each and every episode having good storylines and perfect dialogues, but not too many having a) and b) (there should still be room for highlights) and christ, please no more than one episode per series with c).

I think Steven Moffat is a genius. But RTD Who is already pretty extreme in its colourfulness (lacking a better term) as it is, and I don’t want to end up lost in lollipop land. I really don’t know how else to explain it.

Plus, she actually had flashbacks to the three episodes previous as if she’d been gone for years, when clearly she fucking hadn’t.

Jekyll was awesome until the last episode came along like a big lumbering ball of crazy messiness.

> In Tate?s case these things simply, and sadly, become familiar in one context first – the sketch show. I guess I was lucky in as much as I didn?t over-expose myself to that show, so Tate?s mannerisms mostly feel like part of Donna.

Yep.

>?Cleese-isms?, ?Tennant-isms?, ?O?Dowd-isms??

O’Dowd is the new Doctor

>What?s he gonna say then, ?many planets have an Ireland??

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qi6inFgxjpU

> Jekyll was awesome until the last episode came along like a big lumbering ball of crazy messiness.

YOU’RE WRONG! (Repeat to fade)

Well, what a letdown that was.

Shall I keep this one for next time I have PMS? :P

Nah, I’ll type it all when I have the time… although the two episodes were bloody long, so in order to remember all of the stuff I disapprove of, I’d have to watch them again, like in the olden days, with pencil and paper ready.

To cut it short for now: too much of everything.

> Quite how you could like the terrible Turn Left and have big problems with the finale is baffling to me!

THIS!!!!!!!!!

It looks like Marleen’s fallen out of love, maybe it’ll take another thread to remind her what she liked about Doctor Who in the first place.

I thought it was the best of the finales so far. It was stupid, over-the-top, messy, confusing, badly-explained, schmaltzy and overlong. But gloriously so!

Also Davros.

Also Cribbins.

> It looks like Marleen?s fallen out of love,

Nooooooo. No no no no no.

> I thought it was the best of the finales so far.

I thought the finales have gotten gradually worse… (I can’t remember whether I preferred the 2nd or 3rd at the time – but still)

> It was stupid, over-the-top,
> messy, confusing, badly-explained, schmaltzy and overlong.

And I thought I had to write a summary… :P

> But gloriously so!

Really? :(

Ah well – I don’t want to discuss this based solely on my bad mood ;) I have a little much to do at work right now, so it may have to wait until Saturday…

I think my reaction after watching the Series Four finale at the House of Symes boiled down to “Toss, but brilliant toss”. Although I found myself agreeing with lots of your points so on a second viewing it’s likely I wouldn’t be quite so satisfied.

Which was great yeah, but as TheLeen sort of said…Daleks AGAIN.