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Doctor Who (13th Doctor)

Started by JamesC, 09 November, 2017, 02:30:49 PM

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shaolin_monkey

Quote from: The Monarch on 02 March, 2020, 03:39:37 AM
Also i think that clears up the whole brain of moebius snarl in a tiny bow now :lol:

Wait, what?  What did I miss?  Was that in the bit where the Doctor [spoiler]fought the Matrix with her memories?[/spoiler]  Someone explain please!

M.I.K.

Quote from: shaolin_monkey on 02 March, 2020, 12:55:11 PM
Quote from: The Monarch on 02 March, 2020, 03:39:37 AM
Also i think that clears up the whole brain of moebius snarl in a tiny bow now :lol:

Wait, what?  What did I miss?  Was that in the bit where the Doctor [spoiler]fought the Matrix with her memories?[/spoiler]  Someone explain please!

Yes. [spoiler]Faces.[/spoiler]

IndigoPrime

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 01 March, 2020, 11:08:26 PMI'll stick my neck out and say I think it's been as good a series as any since the revival.
I do wonder if that's the case for me as well. Doctor Who has always been really inconsistent, and that was true from RTD's time onwards. For me, Orphan 55 was one of the worst episodes in the show's history, and Praxeus was also dire. But most other series have had at least one or two clunkers. But I very much enjoyed Skyfall's first part (the second was OK), Fugitive, and the final four episodes. Also, kudos to Chibnall for doing something rare in Doctor Who: writing a two-parter where for me the second half didn't ruin the entire thing.

There are issues. I still don't really get what this Doctor stands for, and she too often feels like a passenger in her own series. In the former case, that was evident last night. As people have noted elsewhere, there were other 'outs' for the Doctor that may have been used in the past – perhaps using a virus to nullify the Cyberman Time Lords, or even something like Nigel Auchterlounie's amusing take, where the Cyberlords are reminded they have a part of the Doctor within them, and so she takes them over. (They could have become an interesting species.)

Mostly, I'm a bit uncomfortable with how fine this Doctor is with wiping out entire species, as long as no-one uses a gun or she doesn't have to use the weapon herself. (I'm anti-guns, but in that rubbish episode with the spiders, the merciful thing would have been killing them, rather than leaving starving spiders to eat each other to extinction.)

Quote from: Bolt-01 on 02 March, 2020, 12:14:46 PMThat was proper silly fun.
NO YOU ARE WRONG DOCTOR WHO IS SERIOUS AND HERE IS MY 50000 WORD ESSAY ON WHY THE CANON IS NOW—

QuoteThoughts - Grahan & co now have a working TARDIS that looks like a house.
Clara's also blasting around in a TARDIS, isn't she? And tree TARDIS feels like a plot point in waiting.

QuoteWas the 'mystery' Doctor potentially a pre-Hartnell incarnation?
Who knows? That does make sense as one place to slot her in. And perhaps residual memories regarding police box/helping people/escaping the Time Lords filtered through to Hartnell lifetime Doctor, hence his decision to nick a TARDIS, flee, and end up on Earth with it. (Perhaps it was even the same one, and got screwed up.)

QuoteHow did the Judoon teleport into the Tardis? I thought that was not allowed.
It's not. But then timey-wimey wibbly wobbly what the scripty demandsy.

Dandontdare

I got no problems with the new canon, but if the "Ruth" Doctor is actually pre-Hartnell, why was her Tardis a police box?

And I may need to rewatch to understand the explanation of what the Gard Brendan bits were about. Am I right that [spoiler]they are a disguised version of her pre-Hartnell memories of service in the Division? If so, are they just her own subconscious interpretations or did someone actively decide to use mid C.20th rural Ireland to mask her memories? [/spoiler]

Dandontdare

Quote from: Bolt-01 on 02 March, 2020, 12:14:46 PM
How did the Judoon teleport into the Tardis? I thought that was not allowed.

It is at Christmas - cf Donna & The Titanic.

IndigoPrime

Dandontdare: my reading of it is the same as yours, yes. As for Ruth, how long had she been on Earth? Perhaps she rocked up at the relevant time, then buried the TARDIS, and lived her life for years.

Leigh S

Why does Ruth Doctor have a Police Box?  Why has the Doctor only just bumped into another version of herself?  If it is because Gallifrey isnt on the scene, that doesnt work given it has been written out for the most part since Eccleston - then there are the implications for various stories, but all this is canon - it's Chibnall who is concerned with Canon, with how to make the Brain of Morbius Doctors canon, or that David Bishop/David Warner Big Finish story canon....

My concern with the canon bothering is three fold

I like the Doctor as a "person who got up one day and left for adventures" - people who enjoyed this episode I'm genuinely interested in how you feel about the Doctor being an agent of the CIA all these years (and how does that really make sense of an older Doctor running off - wouldnt he have been adventuring on behalf of the Division throughout the youth of Hartnell?  But that is canon bothering - are we happy the Doctors agency seems less?  That the Doctor is now "special" amongst Timelords? The real problem is you cant have both the gentleman adventurer Troughton/Pertwee/Baker being hit up by the Timelords to do the odd job, with him also being their top undercover guy/gal?

I hate "chosen ones" - Harry Potters and Luke Skywalkers - now the Doctor can be one too.

It was dull as ditchwater and cliched as hell! Doctor walks into a room and is paralysed, but sent to the Matrix, where anything can happen.... but we'll settle for a grey mist.  a Mark Millar version of the Master narrates.  And as the Ruth Doctor said, what did it reallly tell us about the Doctor that make a material difference? Problem is solved by a hilarious scale model of a cyberman with a newly revealed and entirely plot or character unrelated get out and a convenient old man to do the thing the Doctor thinks shouldnt be done?

The show did well enough wihtout canon, without trying to burden the character with depth - it was all mined in Ecclestons first series - man/woman who will do good in dire circumstances.  Never cruel or cowardly.


Leigh S

(and when I say depth, I mean genuine characterfulness, not pasted on and often contradictory emoshes)

https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2020-03-02/doctor-who-the-timeless-children-review/

shaolin_monkey

Quote from: M.I.K. on 02 March, 2020, 01:32:09 PM
Quote from: shaolin_monkey on 02 March, 2020, 12:55:11 PM
Quote from: The Monarch on 02 March, 2020, 03:39:37 AM
Also i think that clears up the whole brain of moebius snarl in a tiny bow now :lol:

Wait, what?  What did I miss?  Was that in the bit where the Doctor [spoiler]fought the Matrix with her memories?[/spoiler]  Someone explain please!

Yes. [spoiler]Faces.[/spoiler]

Ah!! OMG!! So that Brain of Morbius episode showed that Hartnell was NOT the first Doctor, and now finally we have an explanation why!!

Blimey.

Leigh S

Except it doesnt work as an explanation at all... the Doctor's mind had been wiped, so he wouldnt remeber these Doctors... but if he did, why didn't it spark him to remember the past lives and investigate them at teh time? Fan service, but raising more questions than it superficially answers

Bad City Blue

i enjoyed it, have enjoyed most of this series. Jodie is a wonderful Doctor except for the "derp" face she pulls way too often.

I just with Leigh would tell us what he REALLY thinks!
Writer of SENTINEL, the best little indie out there

Tiplodocus

Now i feel terrible for enjoying it despite the flaws.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

Pyroxian

Quote from: Leigh S on 02 March, 2020, 10:44:29 PM
Except it doesnt work as an explanation at all... the Doctor's mind had been wiped, so he wouldnt remeber these Doctors... but if he did, why didn't it spark him to remember the past lives and investigate them at teh time? Fan service, but raising more questions than it superficially answers

Given that the Doctor nearly died in that scene and had to be revived using the Elixir of Life, it could be reasonable to assume that his brain didn't remember such a traumatic event (esp. if it had previously been subjected to tampering).

von Boom

Overall I thought it was a pretty good episode. Yes, many of the problems have already been mentioned so I won't belabor those, but I thought it was pretty weak to have the Doctor threaten to use the Death particle and fail to do so only to have the Doctor step in and do it for her. Maybe I'm the only one that feels that Ko Sharmus was yet another Doctor.

Leigh S

#269
 :D

I think the episode could have been saved for me by Jodie going all Chris Morris vs Peter O Hanra Hanrahan when the woman said "We know all about the Death Particle-"  "REALLY?"  "Yes"  "The Death Particle, where did you hear about that, then?"  "It's a legend..." "A LEGEND?! Really?"  "yeah, a legend about that Cyberman" "The Cyberman who just talked about Cyberium creating the Death Particle in him" - "Thats the one, yes!" "The Cyberman who only just got the Cyberium in him?"  "Errr"  "And was just talking to the Master about how this is the new plan of the Cyberium?" .. ."err" "

I think drama is like music or dance, and there is a pace and rhythm.  You don't pull Death Particles out of your ass and call it good Drama - that one element is indicative of the the whole approach to story telling - make it up as we go along, there's no "architecture" to it, no skill, no flow.  We know why Wagner is good, we know why Alan Moore is good... it's story telling.  I am at a loss how anyone who can tell the quality in a Wagner/Moore script can be satisfied with the... shoddiness of it all?

I'm not happy to be "on the same side" of all the outraged gammon bleating about PC gone mad/woke/agendas etc.... but subpar drama and cliche are subpar drama and cliche


Quote from: Bad City Blue on 03 March, 2020, 09:58:10 AM
i enjoyed it, have enjoyed most of this series. Jodie is a wonderful Doctor except for the "derp" face she pulls way too often.

I just with Leigh would tell us what he REALLY thinks!