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

[Steve Green]

I was disappointed that they couldn't have had him mucking about with it first, getting a frame or two of his previous incarnations here and there.

- Steve

[petemaskreplica]

hmm, I think you're letting retro-continutity get the better of you there. I look at it from the point of view of Biblical timespans: 100 years is just a shorthand for "a very long time".

Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed it; as the gf said, "it's great the way it manages to be scary and funny and stupid and clever all at the same time!"

my fiver's on those sphere things being the Time Lords, one way or another.

Go Martha!

[Jim_Campbell]

"Hartnell was more sprightly and wasnt he a few hundred years old?"

This is an excellent point that I hadn't considered in all its implications ... even if we allow for Hartnell not being the Doctor's first incarnation (and I believe that this may, in itself, be heresy in some quarters), by the time we get to Baker (T), it's established that the Doctor is some (IIRC) 750+ years old.

This clearly means that barring injury or illness, a single Time Lord lifespan between regenerations must be measured in centuries ...

So, take your laser-fucking-screwdriver and your lazarus-fucking-machine and stick 'em up yer arse, Russell!

Cheers

Jim

[petemaskreplica]

anyway, who said Gallifrey yeras were the same as Earth years, eh?

[Skeabost]

I always thought it amazing that the Doctor got through 700+ years in one incarnation, yet ever since he's averaged about 3 years per body. I'm probably missing out on some uber-geekery here, but did the Hartnell Doc just lead a very sheltered life immediately prior to the first adventures we know about?

[M.I.K.]

I've either got a serious case of deja vu or this question's already been asked in a previous thread not so long ago.

[Mardroid]

Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if the globe aliens were timelords too, but that would clash a bit with the Master's apparent shock when the Doctor told him Galiphrey burnt, and that they were the last. You'd have thought the globes would have told him (although it's quite possible they might have lost some memory with their bodies I guess).

He could have been faking it of course, but I thought that part was a genuine moment between them.

I just realized that last sentence looks funny.

[Noisybast]

I reckon they're human brains in dalek-style robot "bodies".

The evidence:

1. RDT wrote this, and he's a bit obsessed with Daleks.

2.  the following snippet from the Harold Saxon site:

Q. Is it true that Harold Saxon plans to reintroduce National Service?

A. Harold Saxon is modernising our armed forces, making them a more appealing and satisfying career prospect for young people. Recruitment is at a sixty-year high. Therefore we feel the reintroduction of National Service is unnecessary.

Possibly the rocket full of future humans "Professor Yana" blasted into space last week?

[Gothmog]

I'll second the future human killing globe idea.  The Master said it'd break The Doctor's hearts and there's nothing he loves more than us fantastic, brilliant humies.  Although having them drop through a rift and start wiping out their ancestors causes a bit of a paradox.  Guess that's why The Master built a pardox machine.

"Sim's pantomime mugging just made me wish that they'd stuck with Jacobi"
In confidential after the episode John Simm said that all his manic moments were specifically written into the script so he just followed them to the letter.  Couldn't tell whether that was a diguised apology for them or a celebration of the detail RTD puts into the script.

Seeing as that bomb timer was set for the moment The Doctor and his companions were in the flat and The Master made a comment to them on live Tv couldn't he have also had the foresight to deploy a large force of armed police there after they'd entered the house.  It would saved a lot of running around.  

[Jim_Campbell]

"hmm, I think you're letting retro-continutity get the better of you there. I look at it from the point of view of Biblical timespans: 100 years is just a shorthand for "a very long time"."

I'd buy that, if it weren't for RTD's clear and infantile belief that big numbers make things more science-fictiony ... or are we overlooking the year two-thousand-gazillion, or whatever it was.

Cheers

Jim

[Steve Green]

A couple more reasons to think they're the future humans.

The Master's sneery dismissal of Utopia, in the far future makes it sound the Utopia project was the Master's, and Yana was unaware of what it actually was.

His tissue compression gizmo would enable someone to fit inside the Toclafane. (I'm hoping it's that rather than just a brain, as it's been done enough with the Cybermen and Daleks using bits of humans)

- Steve

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

My theory, posted on SFX board too, is:

 The spheres contain the spirits of Time Lord children who looked into the VOrtex, in a Neitzsche kind of "they looked into the Vortex, it looked back" stylee. This explains why they talk and act like children, and the cold, dark thing they are afraid of is the vortex.

[Jim_Campbell]

"The spheres contain the spirits of Time Lord children who looked into the VOrtex, in a Neitzsche kind of "they looked into the Vortex, it looked back" stylee. This explains why they talk and act like children, and the cold, dark thing they are afraid of is the vortex."

This makes a lot of sense, and would set up a "you must destroy your race AGAIN" sort of thing that I could see RTD going for in a big way ...

Cheers

Jim

[Dark Jimbo]

I didn't like the sneery in-reference to the theory of the Master being the Doctor's brother - 'Ho ho ho, you've been watching too much t.v.'

This is probably because a part of me still harbours a longing for an alternative universe where Roger Delgado didn't die so tragically early, and they were able to film the planned Pertwee story featuring the said revelation, bringing an end to the Master's appearances before he could jump the shark.
Yes, the revelation would have been a tad 'hokey' and obvious, but it would have worked in the context of the Pertwee era and saved the character's endless return appearances throughout the 80's which gradually dimished him to second-rate panto villian status.

I think the line in this episode was meant to be a knowing in-joke to fandom, but it came across to me as a bit of a smarmy 'what a lot of shit old Who was' dismissal.

[Roger Godpleton]

Why would an amazingly clever evil genius play such an innocuous piece of chart fluff when his plan all came together?

He could have least put Ride of the Valkyries or some other cliched music on.