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Hopefully it will be an hour long at least...

That wasn't bad, though it didn't have to land any endings - it wasnt clear what Cyber-Ranters game is, but then again, it should hopefully all pan out next week and tie in with the whole Gallifrey destruction/other Doctors threads....  should.....

Good to see the Master, not great to see the Master as Tennant adjacent - I'm trying to imagine Anthony Ainley playing the Master as Tom Baker might and failiing.  The Villain should surely stand as opposite to the Hero rather than some weird mimic? I suppose you could see some echoes between the urbane Pertwee and Delgado incarnations....

If Cyber-Ranters only plan to ascend is to "switch them off and on again", that seems a bit poor!  Hope there is more to it  than that, and that is hinted at.  I thought there would be fun had with the Cybermen doing everything possible to avoid killing those last humans as the only source of more of their kind, so having 10,000s of Warrior types in deep freeze(Need a better look at the design, but on first glance liked them - a bit "Invasion/Revenge" style)  feels both a missed opportunity and a bit of a cop out.... for now

By the end of series 1 I was positive, but anxious about the same issues that have marred my enjoyment ever since - as I say, what I see as a bug, others see as a feature:

https://forums.2000ad.com/index.php?topic=14189.45

but some relevant discussion going on there pertinent to this thread, 15 years on! PVS, where art thou?  well I know where you are, holed up in Midlam Manor plotting nefariously, but even so - Glory days!

Just to prove the memory doesn't cheat, my review of "Rose" - quite easy to go back and find these as this iteration of the forum appears to have started only aa couple of months before the Who relaunch...

Much better than it had any right to be - OK, so there was little 'plot' but there wasnt meant to be one - it was about introducing the characters and concepts, and did that perfectly.  Eccleston was perfect - all the clips I'd seen didnt prepare me for how well he did every aspect of teh role, from manic to serious - Even Piper exceeded expectations.

The only real downer was the terrible incidental music, which undermined a lot of the tension, especially in the early section. 

And nice to see Beeb f*** up by piping in Norton at the most opportune moments - well done you arses!

That's certainly the case, but it seems a lazy defence of a show (or comic) to find the most ill informed, vague or gammony critics and characterize all criticism as that - I remember when Who came back and I was pretty much delighted with that first series, despite some reservations around plot resolution (the infamous RTDeus Ex Machina). 

While there were a lot of indisputable MMs, it was clear all criticism was swept under the same umbrella - define your "enemy" as the worst, most straw man example - then kind of make it like you need to choose - are you for this or against it?  "Why are you watching it if you hate it!" - you see it in all walks of life, look at Politics - it's that dratted interwebs fault I tell thee...

if all criticism is made null by the worst of the critics, then Mother Earth is objectively as good as the Cursed Earth, Dead Meat as good as The Dead Man?

I think the point I'm making is more about nostalgia clouding the senses rather than objective quality. The former happens a lot in fandom, and 2000 AD is hardly immune to that, given the prevalence of the "it used to be better in the old days" brigade.

I get that, but does that mean there is no point in criticism?  that all are equally as successful so long as there is a core of people who still like it?

Though presumably to follow the logic, we should have rah-raheed that era? 

The point is that fans complain during EVERY era!

Though presumably to follow the logic, we should have rah-raheed that era? 

When he talks about fans complaining when it is complicate dand complaining when it is simple, it's likely a large majority of these people are not the same people - sure there is an uncomfortably large rump of gammons and never pleased, but  if all criticism is made null by the worst of the critics, then Mother Earth is objectively as good as the Cursed Earth, Dead Meat as good as The Dead Man?

As he points out, Chibbers was chief amongst the "MM"s - I'd give him a bit more credit if he didnt backtrack (or at least qualified his not unreasonable distaste for that Era)

See also fandom reaction to 2000 AD (bar, perhaps, the objectively crappy period around the 800s for a few years).

yeah, drop Praxeus and Orphan 55 and have another double, so you get a traditional 6 stories spread over 9 episodes?

3 single parters and 3 doubles, each 55 minutes to an hour to make up for the missing episode (maybe - not sure how long they run at the minute, but 5 minutes each extra would do them the world of good).

Probably give the extra episode to the Eternals one and have the cliffhanger the Doctor freeing the one and realising their mistake, with a second episode of putting it right in some properly clever way (I dont recall how they did it, which is not a good sign).

That would free up a lot of writing room, surely?  Two less stories to have to come up with, nurse along the entire production process

It is possible that make less sense than Praxeus, but had a large enough, powerful enough macguffin to gloss over most of the issues that you might have - not sure why the Cyberium was helping Shelley /how Shelley was able to use it, but maybe a rewatch might make that clear

Only real bugbear is emotional cyberman again - just because Alan Moore did it, people - has no one learnt that lesson yet....?

Not sure what it added to have him stomping about in a grump - the big thing Cybermen have going for them is the lackof emotion, but time and again it's ignored/subverted.  I guess it was to make them more Frankenstein's Monstery?  But I think it would have worked better with a standard type!

Still, Cyberleader rating: "Excellent!" *clenches fist*

Can I say I really like the Lawmaster design on the cover?  A good mix of classic and Willsher! That would work well for the Warlord games

Owen, you have been the real art star!  Thanks for all your effort over these past 8(!) years and look forward to what you do next!

Yeah, that was an improvement, although I don't think they had thought how the finger effect was going to work on screen! 

I dont't mind the odd Cosmic level foe - Celestial Toymaker for the first Dr - The MAster (of Fiction) for the Second, Azal for Third, Sutekh, The Guardians...

I was thinking the same, though I think the ending might have landed a lot better (no pun intended) if we had seen the [spoiler]falling Fattie flyer knocked out of the sky by a series of events caused by the Hi-Ex that Kettle commanded that Judge to do - like a Lawmaster tyre was seen bumping along from the explosion, then over a parapet, then hitting the batglider....[/spoiler]

Otherwise, it was a decent enough Dredd

I have to be honest, Dredd felt a little like an awful lot of work for that final line ...

https://www.denofgeek.com/uk/tv/doctor-who/69811/joe-hill-doctor-who-bbc-rejection

Presumably Moffatt rather than Chibster, but what the actual?

I mean, they might have been bad, but as bad as Kill The Moon?

I was a very critical 12 year old! 

The plot holes or leaps in the old show were much easier to overlook when the show  made an effort to explain  stuffor just plain keep it simple - sometimes the explanation was a bit weak, but it showed some care.  Zygons dont make much sense with their Loch Ness Monster, but I don't want to pick them apart because the show wisely keeps the narrative simple enough to follow and engage in other ways - I'm not having to try and fill in the gaps in those old shows with any old grout of my own invention.  Here, there is only the plot, the mystery of the plot - it asks you to conssider the mystery of the plot - how are these things connected? it keeps asking you to consider.....  but then has no answers, and outright contradictions.... so the gaps are all there is (bar some funny banter and worthy* messages)

*and I say worthy in a very positive sense - I thnk they undermine the positivity of those messages by the threadbare plottng they utilise them in, but yeah, The Green Death  - go for it!

I mean, you can look at The Invisible Enemy and say "we have carte blanche to be as silly as that"...

Or put it another way, we should set the bar for Dredd at Elviss the Killer Car, or Judge Tyrannosaur, because they exist?

The last season was crap because it was rather dull and plodding, and this one started poorly I grant you, but kicking off because the narrative device of "collecting one of the clues that the doctor will need later in the plot" was depicted as "he wraps it in a t-shirt" is pedantry of the highest level.

I thought the last season was an improvement in many ways (on Moffat and on this new one)- felt more old school Who, for good or ill.  Focussing on the plots rather than some ultimately half baked mystery arc, it actually felt quite fresh even when it didnt land  - which was half the time, but OK - the only one I really disliked was the Dalek one (though missed and never caught up with the spider one as the reviews seemed pretty dire!)