Look Who’s back (No spoilage? Pretty please with sugar on?)

[TheLeen]

I confess I haven’t see Dr Who. Ever. None of it, not even old episodes. I read it was on German telly briefly towards the end of the eighties, but somehow I missed that, busy with elementary school as I was.

Soooo, for some time now I’ve been visiting DVD rentals asking them for Who and never got any. Well. My boyfriend said, why don’t you complain to the channel that bought the rights for the new couple of series and never broadcast them? So I google them and what does the first link tell me?

Dr Who, from end of January, Saturdays, 5 PM. (It is now Saturday, 4.45 PM CET.) Eek!
http://www.space-view.de/news/13171058/2007/12/dr_who_ab_januar_2008_auf_pro7.html

But it starts next week :)

Dubbed version. But better than nothing, for a start. (Looked into buying some time ago, but it’s expensive.)

Soon I’ll be knowing what the fuck you lot are talking about.

Topic

[Andrew]

I’d been concerned about how School Reunion would go down, because it really relies on the nostalgia factor. You don’t need the specifics, but vague memories of seeing a previous Doctor running around with K9 and Sarah Jane are sorta required to get the best out of it.

Also: Buffy’s amazing TV. Is just is. So ner.

[ChrisM]

“- Didn?t appreciate Sarah Jane. She?d bloody better be a real Doctor Who character and not invented for that episode. Blah.”

She’s had two spin-off shows too. K-9 and company in the ‘old days’ and the Sarah Jane adventures (or some such name) a modern show.

Didn’t see much of the former (which seems like a good thing, I found K-9 irritating for some reason, although I didn’t mind him in this New Who episode) and only a couple of episodes of the latter… which actually wasn’t that bad, although it’s aimed primarily at kiddies.

[John Hoare]

School Reunion I’m just not keen on. (And I’ve gone on about it before, but I’ll blather on anyway.) It has its good moments – Anthony Head is wonderful, the Krillitines are some of the best CGI monsters Who have done (too similar to that thing in Father’s Day, mind), and “I’m the tin dog” is one of my favourite lines. And the teaser is deliciously nasty.

But, teaser aside, the school setting doesn’t do much for me, and – and I know I’m generally alone on this – but “THE. LOCH. NESS. MONSTER!!!!!!1111” and accompanying dialogue makes me want to scream, it’s so awkward and embarassing and poor. But crucially, for me, the whole episode is hung up on the returning companion = ex-girlfriend thing. Which is a clever idea… but they hardly do anything with it. And what they DO do with it just feels painfully obvious and clunky to me, which is quite some achivement for something that (to my knowledge) the show has never examined properly before…

Whilst I’m really beginning to hate the phrase “the episode thinks it’s cleverer than it is”, it’s unfortunately the vibe I get from the episode.

[TheLeen]

I enjoyed the whole missus vs ex stuff, including the Nessie dialogue 8) But you’re right, it probably could’ve been done… in a more delicate way.

[Ian Symes]

Stuff I looked up on the ?net (I had to!): Her name is Elisabeth Sladen, and she starred in Doctor Who from 1973 to 1983 (81 episodes, omfg), as well as several films, a Doctor Who one in 1993 and something to do with K-9 in 1981. Okay, fine. Looks like she?s allowed to exist, then.

The 1993 one wasn’t a film, it was a travesty. Dimensions In Time, a piss-poor Doctor Who/Eastenders crossover for Children In Need. And the 1981 one wasn’t a film either, it was a pilot for a spin-off series that didn’t get picked up. The best thing about it was the demented theme tune, which consisted of some electronic beeps with John Leeson shouting “K-9!” at random intervals.

[TheLeen]

> Doctor Who/Eastenders crossover

What??!!!
Nooooooooooooo wayyyyy.
(I have to see that for myself at some point.)

> The best thing about it was the demented theme tune, which consisted of some electronic beeps with John Leeson shouting ?K-9!? at random intervals.

Found a snippet of it on youtube. Brilliant music.

Thanks for the info, to you too Marbloid.

[TheLeen]

Episode 2×04 – The Girl in the Fireplace

Now we’re talking!

The Good

– I like the episodes set in the past. They gots costumes and stuff.
– More strong women.
– More Mickey. And again, he had some of the best lines. I don’t remember now what they were, but they were brilliant.
– Nice fear factor.
– No, you can’t keep the pony.
– Classic sci-fi. (“The repair droids just did what they were told to do. No one’s told them that the crew weren’t on the menu.”)
– Classic sci-if ending (showing the ship’s behind).
– STEAMPUNK.
– There was more but my sis rang before I could type this. I’ll just have to watch the episode again in the afternoon.

The Other

– Aww, no happy ending for Ms Pompadour. Which makes the episode even better, I suppose. (I know, after watching “The Doctor Dances” I complained about the HAPPY happy ending. Now I’m complaining that it was a not-so-happy happy ending.)
– Actually, that was a bit daft of the Doctor. “Back in five minutes”, he should’ve known better. The ship was a bit rubbish…
– I can just picture the production crew’s faces when they read the script. “… and then the Doctor rides the horse from the space ship into the ballroom, right into the crowd, through a mirror up on the wall.” A nightmare. Paid off though. (Although you COULD see that it was cgi.)
– King Louis looked vaguely familiar… ? But really wasn’t in anything else so I’m probably making this up

The Else

I don’t know why Moffat’s so brilliant, but he is. The dialogue’s fantastic, the story’s fantastic. It’s the kind of telly that leaves me euphoric and wanting more. Fantastic. Best episode so far in series two, and up there with the best of series one’s episodes. Probably somewhere between Father’s Day and The Empty Child, or maybe even better than the WW2 ones.

I know I shouldn’t have, but I watched the preview. Next week: an alternative London that is kinda like ours, but a little bit not (Sliders?) and (ta-daa!) CYBERDUDES. I am really, really looking forward to that.

[TheLeen]

But why could they speak & understand French when the TARDIS was 3000 years away? Hm.

[Andrew]

“The TARDIS gets into your brain.” Apparently.

[TheLeen]

Even French?!

[Dave]

The TARDIS Frenches your brain.

[ChrisM]

>Thanks for the info, to you too Marbloid.

Heh, you’re welcome. Seems I was wrong about the K-9 and company series, though, it appears that never got made. I never actually saw it although I saw a clip from the pilot, the dodgy music and the intro. sequence.

Think I might change my id. Most people seem to use their own name on this site don’t they?

And yeah, the Tardis automatically translates for you and those you speak to. Right in your brain, so you actually hear in your own language… if that makes sense. Think of it as being like the Universal Translator in Star Trek.

Good point about the French setting actually being thousands of miles away, (actually it would be millions since the ship is in deeps space), I never thought of that. There are lots of portals though, so I imagine the Tardis can ‘broadcast’ (for want of a better term) through them? Of course that doesn’t really explain how it could continue when the time portals connection was broken later.

I think likely distance isn’t a factor as long as The Doctor is conscious. (Actually I don’t think ordinary sleep would disrupt the circuit either, bear in mind he was out of sorts after a regeneraton in that Christmas invasion episode.) The Tardis can travel (mostly) anywhere anywhen, so it can likely communicate that way too. (With a small upgrade it allows mobile phones to be used after all.) Or maybe we’re thinking about it too much. ;)

Concerning the Girl in the Fireplace, I liked that episode too. I never quite understood why the droids were that design though. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the whole clockwork thing, but it seemed a rather different technology to the ship itself. That’s assuming they were part of the ship’s own repair mechanism (which I thought was the case) rather than a bunch of alien droids who turned up later. Considering their limited programming, I think they were the former.

[TheLeen]

> Of course that doesn?t really explain how it could continue when the time portals connection was broken later.

Well, if the Doctor speaks some 5 billion languages like he claims, that wouldn’t be a problem, as he’s the only one there. Well, he and the droids…

[ChrisM]

>Well, if the Doctor speaks some 5 billion languages like he claims, that wouldn?t be a problem

No it wouldn’t. (I missed that bit. But it’s been a while since I saw those episodes.)

[Seb Patrick]

Of course that doesn?t really explain how it could continue when the time portals connection was broken later.

Well, if the Doctor speaks some 5 billion languages like he claims, that wouldn?t be a problem, as he?s the only one there. Well, he and the droids?

Yeah, I was going to say – I don’t think Rose and Mickey ever go back to France. And you would think the Doctor would be able to speak French… and so when Reinette does join them on the ship in the future, Rose and Mickey are close enough to the TARDIS for it to translate.

[Jonathan Capps]

So the code gives you access to the universe?s building blocks. How cool is that? By the way, some three months ago I dreamt that I could manipulate the universe through pseudo SQL queries. I left-joined the kitchen to the bedroom for quicker access to the fridge. Awesome.

I love you.

[Pete Part Three]

The Girl in the Fireplace = Very, very good. My appreciation of Doctor Who does not extend to buying any merchandise (aside from The Nth Doctor, a fascinating book), but it’s telling that this episode reminds on my Sky+ two years later.

>Think I might change my id. Most people seem to use their own name on this site don?t they?

They do? Oh, OK.

[ChrisM]

Heh. Good one Shithead.

See I can say that and I’m not being insulting

[John Hoare]

This discussion is continued here.

[Author]

Replies