2000 AD Online Forum

...once again, your opions please..

...diddly dee, diddly dee, ooooo-eeee-oooo...

...or should that be another 'o'?...

Still think its the master although the rest of my family (yes they watch it too) think its just a ghost story.

Guardian comment:

I think tonight's episode, The Unqiet Dead may be the single best piece of family-oriented entertainment the BBC has braodcast in it's entire history.  It's clever, it's funny, it's exciting, it's moving, it's got shades of Nigel "Quatermass" Kneale about it, it looks fantastic, and in places it's genuinely frightening.  TV doesn't get better than this, ever.

- Charlie Brooker

Heh, good to see Charlie Brooker has finally reined in the hyperbole...

I'm looking forward to tonight's ep, having just watched "Horror of Fang Rock" again. It'll be interesting to see how the two compare, but I've got high hopes for "The Unquiet Dead".

I've come forward in time to tell you last week's episode was pretty good.

I am looking forward to tonight as well, to be honest, I'm hoping it gets better and better.

I have the feeling that once Joe Ahearne arrives on directing duties with episode 6, the show will hit its stride - though this one should hopefully do the business

I still maintain that it should have been called 'What the Dickens?!'

Time Lords trapped souls.

circa late 1800s-1900s.

The Gelf....


Couldn't Gatiss make up his own names?

...so they WERE zombies all along

I imediately logged onto the internet to register my approval.

That was great fun.

Dr Who.

Quarry planet?

Soon?

they won't be having quarry planets apparently

 It was great because it had some of the new serises  
humor but with a more darker feel to it.It also had zombies and aliens what more do you want.

Shakara - "The Gelth", not "the Gelf". Don't think it's a name that's been used before, and if that's your only complaint...

PVS - ditto. That was a cracking episode. The pacing was much improved, though it would have been great to see it given two episodes to give it room to build tension a bit. SFX were excellent, the acting was marvellous (even though Callow hammed it up something rotten at points) and the hints at the larger story were tantalising (a "Time War"? Interesting...)

Next week looks superb, and the "big bad wolf" comment from the medium seems to foreshadow that (one of the pieces of graffiti in publicity shots for next week's episode says just that, IIRC).

Fantastic :-)

"What the Shakespeares?"
More like.

I very much enjoyed this episode.

"Couldn't Gatiss make up his own names?"

Well, to be honest if you tap the keyboards randomly enough time to come up with your alien names you'll eventually use one that's been used before.

There was a funny point for me when it crossed my mind,that if Rose left the TARDIS and ran striaght into Jack the Ripper.

I thought the *period* research was bang on.

The Big Bad Wolf reference(s) certainly seem to point to big things ahead- but are they references to next week's story, or the wider, unfolding 'time-war' storyline?

Either way, it's going to be a lot of fun finding out! :)

Fantastic! That's the best one so far... loved the Dicken's refs esp how the ending reflected Christmas Carol.

And I'm well looking forward to next week!

I thought it was cracking stuff tonight, and surprisingly for a sci-fi drama it actually seemed to make sense. Just think how good it wopuld have been with an interesting lead.

ADE

Top marks in the Bolt house! Really good fun.

Bolt-01

I've just wasted a hugely enjoyable half an hour with this medley of clips and music from the sevtnies show.  There's also a sixties one which I enjoyed almost as much.

Link: The Seventies

Fan - tastic, very interested to know what the heck a time war is!

Bah... have you never read Time Quake... be Nazi's and Aztecs and dinosaur mayhem next, you mark my words.

Tonight's episode was the best so far. Simon Callow was fantastic as Dickens and Billie Piper's everyman approach to her character just get better every week.

Even got the step-daughter to shut up and watch the TV, so it must be good!

I fear I was watching something else, because while it was a pleasant enough waste of 45 minutes, it wasn't as good as it could have been.
A bit less mugging to camera, a lead who doesn't treat the whole thing like a panto *all* the time, and maybe a bit less of emulating ten year-old trends from US sci-fi television (arcing storylines and 'last of his kind' lead characters) would improve things greatly.
It's alright, though - just not earth-shattering.

And perhaps the 'emulating US sci-fi trends from ten years ago' comment is a bit ignorant of the BBC's genre drama output for the last fifteen years, as all it's good for is jumping on bandwagons, rather than blazing trails like it used to...

I obviously haven't watched as much crap yank TV as you, I've missed all of these 'the last of their kind' lead characters.  

Personally I think the Time War story arc is a tremendous addition to the show that otherwise might feel a little unfulfilling with one-parter storylines.  i.e. it takes the place of the cliff-hnagers in maintaining interest from week to week.  

All seems pretty canny thinking to me, I don't think the Americans invented series story arcs or that there's anything particularly negative about them.  I can think of several potential series arc in Dr Who's past such as The Keys to Time and all the Black/White Guardian stuff.  

Surely the time-war story arc is just the sort of thing Dr Who fans wanted!

It most likely could have been better, so could most things, but at least the show has been getting better every week for me.  And it's not as if there's a single other show on any other channel that I really feel the need to watch...

I merely meant that it isn't reinventing the wheel as far as telly sci-fi is concerned, as the overwhelming response to it on the board is positive, but perhaps overly so.  I expected that a bunch of picky buggers like ourselves would have put the boot in on principle alone, but it's all sunshine and roses so far.  One-of-a-kind lead characters are a staple of yankee telly, and the arcing storyline trend was a big thing years ago for about the five seconds that everyone thought Babylon 5 was going to reinvent serialised science fiction.  Then they actually watched it.  As for your other point...

'I obviously haven't watched as much crap yank TV as you'

YOU HAVE *NO* IDEA!

I dunno, if you enjoy something, you enjoy it really!  If you don't enjoy it, you then start to be more critical, usually to explain why you didn't like it, or why it wasn't satisfying.  I could be more critical, but as long as it's pushing all the right buttons, it could be written by a lump of cheese and directed by triangles for all I care.

Personally, I can't think of a time when I was so excited to be plonked in front of the telly.  Nobody is claiming it's reinventing the wheel, most people are just pleased to see an updated Doctor Who that feels contemporary, has good storylines, good actors and decent production values.  

Still not sure I really understand the gripes about story arcs and this one-of-a-kind problem, though.  You have ongoing hints and clues about why the Timelords have been destroyed (but for the doctor we assume) leading up to something much bigger later on.  Fine!  It's all very intriguing!

Er, I don't remember there ever being a trend for "last of their kind" heroes in US genre series. The only one I can think of is Kai in Lexx, but that was Canadian. What series were you thinking of?

Actually, it's not so much a trend as an ongoing thing nowadays in the same way that every show is an ensamble cast, rather than two or three main characters, like what they used to be like.
Every sci-fi show seems to have 'last of their kind' or 'only one of their kind' members of the cast - Star Trek being a consistent offender in all its incarnations.  I suppose it gives the writers something to write about later down the line when they run out of ideas.

But doesn't genre fiction always deal with unique and unusual characters?  By their very nature they are more interesting than the mundane and everyday. It seems a bit of a wonky argument to me.

Certainly there has been more examples than we probably needed of the group on board a spaceship, whether that's the military model of start trek (all those star treks) or the renegade Blakes 7 model (Farscape, Andromeda).

I mean the reason you usually have an ensemble cast is to give you a lot of options for stories, and the show doesn't balance on a few key actors.  I don't see how they are evil as such.  X-Files did very well without a huge ensemble cast, having only two primary characters.

I can think of a few - Smallville is about the last Kryptonian (except the other Kryptonians that presumably pop up every so often).

Star Trek had Data (the only sentient android, apart from his long-lost brother), Odo (the only shapechanging goo-man, apart from all the ones in that big goo-lake) and probably a few others was Whoopi Goldberg's barmaid the last of her kind?.

Didn't watch it.

Yep, she was. And let's not forget Worf (the only Klingon is Starfleet, apart from the ones that hoin later on) LaForge (the only blind man who could see with a hair thing over his eyes, apart from later one when he could see with his eyes) and Wes Crusher (the only character we all wanted to die, apart from... nope. We always wanted him to die.)

Thaluin?

Thalin.

Thaelean?

Loook,at the timeI posted my guess of what it was about.

Do I get any word from anyone?
Does somebody say, "Nice one" "Good point!"

No but if acted like a ghaffle-bette or said something that didnt run according to gramma.It'd be "ooh stop talking sht."

I dont know.

"No but if acted like a ghaffle-bette or said something that didnt run according to gramma.It'd be "ooh stop talking shit.""

Quaequam Blag!  Keep yer hat on!

"Look,at the time I posted my guess of what it was about."

Time Lord souls?  Well, they did say they were in that state as a result of the time war, but they said that to the doctor to elicit sympathy, they told Gwyneth they were angels.  So they are may well be lying ghosty gits.

"if Rose left the TARDIS and ran straight into Jack the Ripper"

I think Jack the Ripper has been done, certainbly touched upon in Talons of Wieng Chang.  And generally has been done to death (pardon the pun).

Audience figures were up a bit on last week, I thought they might be, just because it was said there was a weather blip last saturday, and I imagine word of mouth might have convinced people to give it another go.

Anyway, even if I don't make a convincing nostradamus (no, I knew  that was gonna happen, honest like - how many of us still fancy nostradamus by the way?)... then the audience was just scraping 9million, probably make that when combined with the BBC results.  It beat the Grand National and, er, the Royal Wedding.

Of course, nobody will watch it next week, because the Doctor is the last of his kind (or is that one of a kind) or they are in some sort of protests against the license fee.

I definately wouldn't watch Dr Who if it was 'three of a kind'.  Timelords in the shape of lenny Henry, Tracy Ullman and the other bloke would be very offputting.

:-)

"the audience was just scraping 9million, probably make that when combined with the BBC results. It beat the Grand National and, er, the Royal Wedding."

...and it caned Ant & Dec for the third week in a row, IIRC :-)

I've also been told that the ITV show "Ministry of Mayhem" had a spoof of "Cassandra" from the second episode - remarkable to see something like that appearing so quickly!

It really does seem like this new series is hitting home with the mainstream audience.

Since my f*cking computer has just wiped the long post I'd written, I'll just say this.

Superb.

Scary, pacey, humorous and interesting with great SFX, brilliant performances and genuinely bringing back the days of scary Who!

Really seemed like the story that Ghost Light should have been ...

lenny Henry, Tracy Ullman and the other bloke

I think his name was/is David Copperfield, the least funny out of the three unfunny people in that programme.

Actually, he was the funiest.






Randomly answered.

As much as I enjoyed the first two Who, I thought Saturday's epsiode was slow, boring and instantly forgettable - except for the wonderful 'What The Shakespere's' line.

M@

Well, it scared the crap out of my 9 year-old, which is what classic Who should do.  Job's a good 'un, I say.

(Of course, I didn't actually  see it, being on the way back from day's miserable football-supporting experience in Glasgow.  Next week in Judge Dredd: Dredd decides to nuke Dundee off the face of the earth.)

Dredd decides to nuke Dundee off the face of the earth

Hooray!

Hibs lose again!

Oh, yeah. Good Who!

Perth and its entire surrounding area are also caught in the blast radius...

Congrats to Mark gatiss for another good Who.

Looking forward also to the episode written by Paul Cornell, ex of this parish.

Haven't seen him around here for a while, though.  He obviously doesn't have a new book to plug  ;->

It was good, and quite scary, continues the great run so far.  Saturday has now become Dr Who day for me, in much the same way that Tuesday was Quantum Leap day back in college (it was big in our house for some reason, and it was the only day we didn't end up in the pub).

As for this episode...wasn't it a bit nasty when they...
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snapped the guys neck to make way for more Gelf!

And what's wrong with copping-it in Cardiff?  Newport I could understand, but Cardiff?  Cardiff's a great city.

Link: Do click on the Cardiff link

"Get the hearse ready. We're going bodysnatching".

Brilliant.

Scared the children, and even gave my wife a nightmare about zombies. So... did it's job perfectly I think.

Why does everyone in TV-land always have an ether-soaked rag to hand?  *Oh look, she's spotted us.  Pass me the ether-soaked rag would you?  Thanks.*

Every bloomin time - REFEREE!!!

Some reservations are growing about this series, although I am enjoying it. Not quite sure why Ecclestone is gurning all the time, especially in seemingly unsuitable situations.

And he's soppy. And he's seemingly useless - didn't even try and escape from the crypt. The first episode he had to be bailed out by Rose. Where's the clever know it all doctor?

There seems to be contradictions within the episodes. One minute the Doctor is berating Rose telling her that time is in flux and constantly looping in on itself and the next he's confidently saying the Dickens will die in 1861(?) regardless of what happened in that episode.

Next week looks a cracker though.

1870. And he did. :)

btw Gordon, you couldn't nuke southampton while you're at it could you?!

scholastic tanky x

Doesn't it feel like he is grooming Rose for something?

"Doesn't it feel like he is grooming Rose for something?"


I have that theory too.  He's sometimes so wilfully dim and ocassionally just downright useless (especially in #1) that it seems he must be holding back to see if she can work out for herself what's going on, or if she's got the guts to help him out in a tight spot.


Otherwise, well, it's a shame the last surviving Time Lord in the universe seems a bit of a berk at times.

He occasionally has the look of a proud parent (or maybe I'm projecting) when Rose grasps a concept or deals with a situation in a certain way...maybe a successor for the Doctor (or maybe we read in too much).

Hold on...

1) Inappropriate gurning
2) Getting excited with historical figures
3) Using time travel to pull young girls
4) Useless

All he needs is a companion called Bill S. Preston Esquire and the Americanisation is complete!

He occasionally has the look of a proud parent (or maybe I'm projecting) when Rose grasps a concept or deals with a situation in a certain way...maybe a successor for the Doctor (or maybe we read in too much).

That sort of reminds me of the first William Hartnell stories... the 'grand-daughter', the educational bent, the Doctor occasionally running out of ideas and/or steam.  Maybe they've returned to the source?

I enjoyed this one - and the four and five yearold I was watching it with managed to sit through the whole thing just because they loved the ghosts (Tiny Tips wanted to get the hoover to sort them out - he's being playing too much Luigi's mansion.

About the only thing I have truble with is Ecclestone's manic performance. It just doesn't sit right. All the reviews have said he is sexy and brooding but I think they are just revieiwing the actor rather than his performance which is about like the annoying office twat from THE FAST SHOW at times.  But in his quiet moments he's great.

Oh and I thought he was deliberately crap at the end of the first episode - I'd assumed it was all part of a big test for Rose. Whether this is true or not, I guess they'll leave to our imaginations. Which is nice...

 

...debate, debate, debate...