Doctor Who - Season... Spring 2013

[Steve Green]

[spoiler]I just put my hand in and squeeze...[/spoiler]

[The Monarch]

[spoiler]Clara brushed past 8 before two walked past in that awesome coat of his[/spoiler]

[Charlie boy]

Easily made up for an off series, that ending has me looking forward to the 50th special all the more now. Moffat proved he can still deliver a great finale and then some.

[Charlie boy]

I was taken aback by Mr Hurt's appearance as a/the ? Doctor

Could the biggest secret be there was a Dr we didn't know about? It's been largely believed McGann's Dr ended the Time War, was it actually Hurt (between McGann and Ecclestone)?

[dweezil2]

Was that a glimpse of Mega-City One I saw in one of Clara's alternate timelines?

[DrRocka]

:a promising 20 first minutes of intrigue and the thrill of an early pay off, followed by a bit of pointless running about and shouting, then a final quarter hour of massively disappointing and convoluted gubbins leading to a hugely overcooked and unsatisfying conclusion, designed solely to get me coming back for more.

Strange how every episode of "Doctor Who" reminds me of the last time I had sex.

[Colin YNWA]

I have a feeling I'm going to fly against popular opinion here, but it annoyed the hell out of me. It was cute, it was nice they way they wrapped in the old Doctors and it was, in design at least, fitting as part of the 50th anniversary tribute. As a story though it was terrible, slight and entirely self satisfied. It struck me the entire series was about proving how clear and intricate it could be. How it was building always to this end, how everything would come together so neatly. To a word. For me there lies the problem. It felt constructed, precise and ultimately shallow. Each line was so pleased with how it echoed with something that had gone before, emphasized by [spoiler]River Song[/spoiler] and how she so 'brilliantly' tied things up. Christ when [spoiler]she said 'spoilers' [/spoiler]at the end there I could have screamed.

The show seems to have forgotten it need to be enjoyed as a 45 minute adventure story first and a big clever series second. I'm taken back to the first series of NuWho and Big Wolf. It was there, the big over arching, season long 'event' aspect was there, but never at the cost of a good 45 minute story (not to say they were all successful, but...). Now its like the season 'thread' is all and the individual stories are mere props to support that. Hence the season as a whole pretty bloody poor overall and the finale, while superficially smart and thrilling, in reality hollow and grating...

Characters defined by clever lines that echo back, by symbols already over exposed, that bloody leaf really got on my nerves. No longer real likable characters, rather tools to weld lines that are meant to powerful and meaningful, but since they aren't delivered by potent real characters come across as just trite and forced.

Sorry I'm ranting and I doubt that makes half the sense it does in my head! I'll get off my soapbox now.

Oh and the on screen titles for the introduction of John Hurt at the end. YIKE!

[Ghost MacRoth]

Nail.  Head of.  Successfully hit. 

[Steve Green]

Yeah, the caption was really unnecessary.

It's Insurrection all over again

[M.I.K.]

Caption reminded me of The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. If there's a Mexican standoff involving sonic screwdrivers in the 50th anniversary episode, you can put it down to foreshadowing.

Thought it was the best episode for ages, which is weird 'cos I thought last week's was possibly the worst since Moffat took over.

This week's kind of reminded me of a comic strip I read back in 1989...  Twelve rejuvenations all

[Hawkmumbler]

This week's kind of reminded me of a comic strip I read back in 1989...  Twelve rejuvenations all

Exactly. Oh, and Lungbarrow.

I was genuinly happy, if not thrilled, by todays episode. A class A example on how to please fans and prove yourself wrong, scattering the GI was a good way of setting up it's appearences in TAS, TWOF and DT (and the presence of the GI in Dragonfire explains that terrible cliffhanger) and that reveal with John Hurt...colour me intruiged. True 9th or Valeyard?

[zombemybabynow]

a new phrase?! for jumping the shark:- [spoiler]revealing the hurt[/spoiler]

[Tiplodocus]

Really enjoyed that ; great finale and reveal after Smith's poorest season.

[Mardroid]

But.....[spoiler]if 'the great intelligence' goes in to infect the doctors timeline, and Clara has to go in to be there to save him throughout time.......then HE goes in and pulls her out......how exactly is she supposed to stop the great intelligence all through time?? 

[spoiler]I believe she had already done all that from her point of view by the point that The Doctor pulled her out. Of course she was supposed to have been scattered into hundreds if not thousands of places all at once so I'm not sure what that version of her in that misty place is meant to be. I.e. is it one of those echoes? Did they all coalesce together again after doing what they needed to do? Or is Clara in the misty place representative off all those echoes at once? I.e. what we're seeing shouldn't be taken too literally, just a way of telling the story and showing something which is intrinsically unshowable. If that makes sense.[/spoiler]

Anyway, I liked it a lot. And I didn't realise it was the finale, considering how it ended. (Of course we know there is more to come. Hopefully not too long to wait.) I'm curious as to which Doctor [spoiler]Hurt represents.  Is it the last one who finally died once for all? I'm particularly interested that he is supposedly the one who 'broke the rule', albeit it might not have been a fault of his. What rule? Speaking his name out loud? (Technically I think Smith's Doctor sort of did that by telling River Song his name, but then he didn't do that directly and she was a special case.)[/spoiler]

[Taryn Tailz]

[spoiler]Clara brushed past 8 before two walked past in that awesome coat of his[/spoiler]

Yep. I had to watch it again on Iplayer to spot him but he was there.

For anyone wanting to double check on Iplayer we see him run past clara at 1:08. Blink and you'll miss it though.