...NEW DR WHO TONIGHT, 23/06/07, 7:15pm, 'THE SOUND OF DRUMS'...

[Roger Godpleton]

Pretty good, apart from typical RTDyness.

[Bolt-01]

My youngest (Nano-bolt- 7) broke into wailing at the end of this weeks show. She was utterly inconsolable- Why?

Simply because the show had finished! She is petrified of the last episode and the huge wait for next year!

Mind- they've been watching the five doctors this week, courtesy of Grandad finding an unopened VHS in his TV cupboard.

Bolt-01- loved it.

[ARRISARRIS]

...it was nice to see they didnt mess with the Time Lords costomes from the days of yore, i miss the guards though, and this is the first time weve ever seen the Time Lords citadel from the out-side, am i right in thinking it is losly based on the one featured in the Doctor Who comic strip drawn by Dave Gibbons around about 1980?...

[paulvonscott]

It all sounds great, apart from the writer.  Any enjoyment would be spoiled for me by RTD.

If he didn't write, and didn't edit scripts, just porduced, It sounds like it could be brilliant.

Glad people are enjoying it, I shall sit alone in the dark with my copy of Pyramids of Mars.

[Leigh S]

Thats about my take on it - its great, except the head writer isnt a very good writer...
 
By which i mean, the only sci-fi ideas
he has had that have impressed me have later turned out to be blatant swipes from other work, and his characters all talk the same - "its like when you fancy someone and they dont know youre there" is a terrible line as an example, because its classic "Russell voice" that all his characters use (even the Master - "you asking me out on a date?" and because it doesnt make much sense in the context other than to clunkily point up the unsubtle and dull 'one sided romance' thing.

This felt like the fourth draft of the same script - like he wasnt happy with how the Slitheen one turned out, so he did it again with the Sycorax one, then again with the Cyberman/Dalek one, then again with this.  someone should point out you cant have 4 'first' contacts, thats kind of a given.

There were good bits, but so often they're undercut with naff.  

[Bico]

Only a madman would apply balanced and considered criticism to a tv show that has British intelligence trying to blow someone up with a bomb that consists of a clock counting down to detonation in large numbers on the front, taped to several bright red tubes with DYNAMITE written up their sides in huge white letters.
I'm in two minds whether the Valiant was a swipe from Captain Scarlet or Nick Fury (via the Ultimates).  It looked dead nice, though.  On the outside, at least.

[Adrian Bamforth]

"Sigh, at least this hackneyed device makes a change from RTD's usual hackneyed device of news reports to show the world being taken over by an alien force"

My mistake...perhaps I should have watched.

Link: http://www.haroldsaxon.co.uk/index.shtml" target="_blank">News reports used show the world being taken over

[Mike Carroll]

I rather enjoyed that episode - the past few have been a great improvement on the last season.

John Simm was just brilliant - perhaps he should have been the Doctor...

Oh, and Arrisarris? Thanks for posting that huge image! Now we can ALL have the fun of scrolling horizontally in order to read everyone else's posts!

-- Mike

[The Monarch]

That was great fun

I am now curious what the Tocefane are due to the masters last comments to the older Doctor

[Will I. Cooling]

I'd imagine they're something to do with the Tardis tbh

[paulvonscott]

"John Simm was just brilliant - perhaps he should have been the Doctor..."

Of course, he still could be!  But I don't think John Simm would want to commit to another long series.

[ARRISARRIS]

... thanks, i was trying to make it larger so everyone could see!!!   (not!)...

...it was my mistake, just got carried away with image posting...

...does anyone else have their own theories as to who Harold Saxon/The Masters wife may be? also who are the orbs if they arnt real aliens???...

[opaque]

I think it was a wonderful episode.

The whole Vote Saxon thing is easily explained away by the whole personality cult thing, didn't anyone see The Amazing Mrs Pritchard? Saxon explained it as well with the cabinet being members of other parties that came over to him.
You can win simply by not being someone hated or mistrusted by the public (eg Tony Blair or Harriet Jones).

Saxon's wife was very well acted I thought and love the choice of music, how weird all that is though. Can't wait to see how this ends.
Does kind of mess up a lot of stuff though, how does the events in yesterdays episode effect the other future things the Doctors already seen, eg the 2012 Olympics episode.

[Jim_Campbell]

Did I watch a different episode to everyone else? I found that Sim's pantomime mugging just made me wish that they'd stuck with Jacobi.

The minor geek thrill of Old School Time Lords couldn't offset the irritation of the usual RTD bollocks and lazy writing ...

"So, Doctor! I have you at my mercy ... you, my ancient nemesis. You, the only other living being in the universe who knows how a TARDIS works and thus might be able to thwart my evil schemes.

"But, I won't kill you without batting an eyelid like I've been doing to everyone else throughout this episode. Oh, no -- I'm going to age you by 100 years ... that's bound to fuck up someone who's already 900 years old and can regenerate their body every time it stops working like it's supposed to."

Bah!

Jim

[Leigh S]

The geek in me wondered why 100 years would be enough to make him look 100ish, given time lords age much more slowly than humans - surely he'd need about 300 years worth of age to get to that state - Hartnell was more sprightly and wasnt he a few hundred years old?