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Dr Who Christmas 2010.....

Started by Buddy, 25 December, 2010, 07:56:10 PM

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Daveycandlish

Yeah I enjoyed it, and although the time travelling bit was necessary for this story I do think the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey episodes get real tired real quick. It's too easy a solution to go back and change things and it can all get a bit messy, like Back to the Future 2.

And yay! More [spoiler]River Song[/spoiler] in the new series! In the nip!
An old-school, no-bullshit, boys-own action/adventure comic reminiscent of the 2000ads and Eagles and Warlords and Battles and other glorious black-and-white comics that were so, so cool in the 70's and 80's - Buy the hardback Christmas Annual!

O Lucky Stevie!

#31
Quote from: Daveycandlish on 30 December, 2010, 09:42:47 PM
Yeah I enjoyed it, and although the time travelling bit was necessary for this story I do think the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey episodes get real tired real quick. It's too easy a solution to go back and change things and it can all get a bit messy, like Back to the Future 2.

Quote from: Leigh Shepherd on 30 December, 2010, 09:11:25 PM
The main problem i have with this and the preceding series is using time travel to "solve" things - its kind of appropriate here, being a retelling of Christmas Caraol and all, but once you open that can of worms, where do you go from here?

You know, considering that he's pretty hip with quantum mechanics (what with the Weeping Angels & Amy Pond being the ultimate extrapolation of the[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigner%27s_friend] Pardox of Wigner's Friend[/url]), Stevie strongly suspects that the Moff is deeply aware of this. He'll even go so far to suggest that The Moff is playing it in the long & that [spoiler]It Is Leading To Something[/spoiler].

Doctor Who is, after all, a show about [spoiler]time travel[/spoiler].

This is vertiginously high SF concept packaged in a populist form, ala PKD. Wondrous stuff indeed.

Next season: Stevie sees [spoiler]Nazis! Proper Nazis! [/spoiler] YAY!!!
"We'll send all these nasty words to Aunt Jane. Don't you think that would be fun?"

Cthulouis

I enjoyed it. A good episode, not the best episode ever, but far and away the best Christmas episode ever.

Was it just me, or did the preview for the next season hint at there being men in black shenanigans. Caus that would be awesome.   

O Lucky Stevie!

#33
Quote from: Cthulouis on 31 December, 2010, 12:56:09 AM
Was it just me, or did the preview for the next season hint at there being men in black shenanigans. Caus that would be awesome.  

Which in turn would elevate the Proper Nazis to a whole new level of post-arsomness.

& that does sound suspiciously like [spoiler]Davros who's been whispering, "Silence shall fall."[/spoiler]

That's all about [spoiler]returning the Universe[/spoiler][spoiler] to the state it existed in [/spoiler] [spoiler]before [/spoiler][spoiler]the Big Bang ie the most perfect ordered state,[/spoiler] right?


If you'd told Stevie that he'd be anticipating the next season of Who with the same febrile fervour as the next Robert Reed novel this time last year he wouldn't have even summed the energy for a dismissive sigh.
"We'll send all these nasty words to Aunt Jane. Don't you think that would be fun?"

Mardroid

Quote from: O Lucky Stevie! on 31 December, 2010, 12:28:47 AM
Doctor Who is, after all, a show about [spoiler]time travel[/spoiler].

For a show involving time travel, I think it's interesting how little time travel actually factors into the plots! Usually it's just a way of getting the Doctor and companions to a particular time and place for an adventure, and that's it.  

I'm glad that Moffat utilises time travel more in his episodes. I wouldn't want to see that all the time (nowt wrong with an old fashioned adventure in one specific time and place) but it seemed to be missing an interesting trick not to use time as a major element in the show more often! As long as they keep to certain rules of course* or things could get silly.

*Mainly, few do-overs**. By that I'm referring to the main characters going back on themselves changing what they've done before.

**Originally I wrote "no do-overs", but I think an exception once in a while can be  very interesting.

O Lucky Stevie!

Quote from: Mardroid on 31 December, 2010, 02:28:07 AM

*Mainly, few do-overs**. By that I'm referring to the main characters going back on themselves changing what they've done before.

**Originally I wrote "no do-overs", but I think an exception once in a while can be  very interesting.

cf Pyramids of Mars & Genesis of the Daleks
"We'll send all these nasty words to Aunt Jane. Don't you think that would be fun?"

House of Usher

I only caught up with the show tonight. First around I was totally confused after 5 minutes and opted to give in to flu, switch off and go to sleep instead.

That was a nice little sci-fi story, even if bits of it were typically 'New Who' daftness, like the sky full of earth-species fish.
STRIKE !!!

Cthulouis

Quote from: House of Usher on 31 December, 2010, 09:09:20 PM
the sky full of earth-species fish.

This bugged my girlfriend as well, she wanted to see something more alien. I can understand, though, why they wanted to go for the whole Loan Shark/Real Shark thing. Some puns are so terrible, they simply must be made.

I can't really argue against the earth fish thing, as I tend to use convergent evolution as a way of justifying why so many aliens in so many shows look just like humans in costumes.

strontium71

Can someone please explain to me something? I seem to remember that the TARDIS couldn't go to any particular place on command because it was broken and just went wherever the hell it wanted. When was this fixed so the Doctor could go whenever and wherever he pleased?
...because I hate you.

SmallBlueThing

As far back as colin baker, he could fly it successfully. Didnt davison remove the randomiser during the 20th season, once he'd beaten the black guardian, as it was no longer necessary? Or am i misremembering. I think it's only hartnell and patrick trumpton who could reliably fly it. Pertwee was mostly grounded, then could basically work it. Tom could do it mostly until he randomised it to escape the guardian.
Didnt see the xmas one, but everyone i know seems to be calling for moffat's blood over it. Was it THAT bad?
SBT
.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: SmallBlueThing on 01 January, 2011, 03:17:27 PM
Didnt see the xmas one, but everyone i know seems to be calling for moffat's blood over it. Was it THAT bad?

Better than anything Davies wrote. A quick google of mainstream critical reaction seems to range from the mildly positive side of lukewarm to quite good. Perhaps your statistical sampling contains some inbuilt bias, there, SBT?

Cheers

Jim
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Dark Jimbo

Quote from: SmallBlueThing on 01 January, 2011, 03:17:27 PM
Didnt davison remove the randomiser during the 20th season, once he'd beaten the black guardian, as it was no longer necessary? Or am i misremembering. I think it's only hartnell and patrick trumpton who could reliably fly it.

[geek]Er, if anything, it was Hartnell and Troughton who couldn't pilot the Tardis.

Despite his angry blustering to the contrary, Hartnell's Doctor seemed almost totally incapable of predicting where or when they would go next - the entirety of the first Doctor Who story 'arc', from An Unearthly Child through to The Chase, is underpinned by the continual failure of the Doctor to return Ian and Barbara to their own time (despite his best efforts) forcing them to jump ship to another time machine first chance they get - they even shrug off the fact of their being out by two years, presumably because by this time they were simply glad to be back on present day Earth at all! Dodo, having joined him in the 60s, likewise leaves him the first time he makes it back there, again presumably because she doesn't know when she might next have the chance. Susan makes lots of references to his 'forgetfulness' as a cause, and it all fits quite nicely with the image of him as a senile old buffer. Most of his companions end up in the Tardis through circumstance rather than choice, and end up hanging around for the simple reason that the Doctor's incapable of returning them to where/when they came from.

Troughton doesn't seem to be much better in this respect, but it isn't as obvious as he seems to quite enjoy the random element of their travels, although Jamie wearily snipes on occassion that he clearly has no real idea how to pilot the Tardis. Ben and Polly pull the same trick as Ian, Barbara and Dodo as soon as he happens to land them back in their own time.

It's not until Pertwee that the Doctor really seems in command of things.[/geek]
@jamesfeistdraws

Greg M.

If I recall, Davison is a fairly acceptable pilot and manages to get the TARDIS to go where he wants at least as often as he gets it wrong. He successfully reaches the Eye of Orion in 'Five Doctors', gets people back to their correct time at the end of 'The Awakening', is pretty much in control of it in 'Time Flight'. Colin Baker seems an even better pilot (fittingly, given his character's arrogance) and from 'The Twin Dilemma' onwards seems to go pretty much exactly where he intends. McCoy seems pretty capable too.

Richmond Clements

He can pilot the TARDIS when plot demands it.

SmallBlueThing

My statistical sampling, jim, is the mates of mine who have been fans for years and who thought it ranged from 'shit' to 'okay'. And my kids, who have tried to watch it twice and given up both times, because it was 'very boring'.
Im not a nuwho person, and moffat's an arse, so it's not for me im afraid!
SBT
.