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    • CommentAuthorMr. Skar
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2011
     (9570.161)
    Diggin' it so far, but I do have one issue with the last episode. I thought the Doctor was generally against killing, and yet he just triggered the wholesale slaughter of The Silent (or Silence? not really sure how to type that out) and didn't really care all that much when River (who is badass by the way) destroyed the whole group of Silent in the fake TARDIS. I'm not really sure what to make of this change, since I thought we left the more war like Doctor behind. Still, I can't wait to see where this whole thing goes.

    Also, miniature Time Lady or Amy's kid at the end?
  2.  (9570.162)
    the BBC have just launched this new game the title of which may be a bit of a spoiler.
    • CommentAuthorOddcult
    • CommentTimeMay 4th 2011
     (9570.163)
    [quote]I thought the Doctor was generally against killing, and yet he just triggered the wholesale slaughter of...[/quote]

    Yeah. He does that.

    It's pretty much a recurring theme that makes the character interesting.
    • CommentAuthorDan Kelly
    • CommentTimeMay 4th 2011
     (9570.164)
    2 things that I've not seen covered in the above thread (apologies if they are!)

    1) Amy tells the Doctor about her pregnancy because she is concerned that the child will have "a time head or something". The little girl is likely her child and the regeneration an effect of gestation on board the TARDIS. She'd be pretty valuable to other races in that case.

    (By the way, is the preganancy "what the Doctor must know" or "what he must never know")

    2) There is no evidence of the TARDIS in the intro to TIA. Could the first scene have been 200 years before 1969? Could the Doctor have spent 200 years on Earth sans TARDIS? if so why?
    •  
      CommentAuthorLazarus99
    • CommentTimeMay 4th 2011 edited
     (9570.165)
    ^I think "what he must never know" refers to the fact that
    they've all seen the Doctor die in his future.
    • CommentAuthorKradlum
    • CommentTimeMay 4th 2011 edited
     (9570.166)
    My theory, having caught up on the latest episodes:

    The girl in the suit is Amy's baby, who is River Song, who is "the doctor's wife", who kills the Doctor, which is why she is in prison
  7.  (9570.167)
    (By the way, is the preganancy "what the Doctor must know" or "what he must never know")

    Well. That's the thing - as the end of 'Day of the Moon' demonstrated, it could possibly be both, or neither. Especially as those aren't very specific directions - presumably the Silent knew a lot more about what Amy knows than Amy herself does.

    There is no evidence of the TARDIS in the intro to TIA. Could the first scene have been 200 years before 1969? Could the Doctor have spent 200 years on Earth sans TARDIS? if so why?

    Errr...except of course, Amy and Rory were able to get a bus ride to that exact spot in which the scene happened. I'm pretty sure it was definitely in 2011, not 1769.

    Unless of course you mean the very beginning scene, in which case you may be right - however, that featured King Charles II and his daughter, several decades before 1769. It's far more likely he was having adventures elsewhere, and on Earth, and parked his 200-years-older TARDIS somewhere where thieves wouldn't get their hands on it.

    Plus, you never know - the Doctor's Edsel station wagon could easily have been a TARDIS with its chameleon circuit used to imitate an American anachronism rather than a British one. AND that episode took care to demonstrate that the TARDIS can turn invisible...

    I'm still bothered by the fact that the Silence seemed much more like hive animals with no individual personalities of their own, similar to the enslaved Ood. Which would imply that they have some sort of leader, some kind of 'Queen' Silence...or even something that synthesized them into life.

    Who knows, perhaps...
    the Silence are an insurance plan created by the Time Lords and their Time Engine is in fact a kind of Time-Lord-Replicating machine. They sent the Astronaut suit into the future to sample the Doctor's DNA, implanted it into Amy's foetus via the Time Engine, and then kidnapped the child when/if Amy gives birth to it, considering the complications that Time Lord DNA seems to be having upon its growth. This is why they let the child go - their aim is to bring the Time Lords back to life, but they don't have any instructions beyond that.
  8.  (9570.168)
    Easelfish: That's a nice theory... sort of thing that'll probably be cleverer than whatever happens on the show.
  9.  (9570.169)
    sort of thing that'll probably be cleverer than whatever happens on the show.

    Interesting. Is this a criticism of the show itself, or Moffat in particular?

    It's something that I noticed when I fell in love with the show and started doing "research" when I found out this show had such a long history.

    Who fans, also have there favorite... Whats the title for them. Head writer?(snicker:) Anyways, the main writer that steers the tardis so to speak.

    Yet they dislike or outright hate, the next head writer that replaced their favorite writer.
    The russel t davies fans vs the Steven Moffat fans for example.

    To me if the writer can display the essence of the show. WHich is a show about the wonder and mysteries of the universe and the love of adventure with tongue firmly held in british cheek. Im happy. So I love any writer that accomplishes that. Both really.
  10.  (9570.170)
    OK, some observations...

    The little girl in the astronaut suit had one blue eye and one green eye - whereas the little girl at the end had the same colour eyes. Misdirection?

    Also, she had an American accent, so therefore can't be River Song (unless the accent regenerates as it did with Eccleston's Doctor)

    How did River Song know there was a Silent behind her when she shot it? Once she turned away from them, surely she would have forgotten? Unless she was judging Rory's facial reaction. Even so.... a bit dodgy.

    Is Amy Pond is split across parallel timelines out of phase - in one she is pregnant, the other she isn't? Hence the TARDIS pregnancy scan result?
    •  
      CommentAuthorCat Vincent
    • CommentTimeMay 4th 2011 edited
     (9570.171)
    BOODOFFSTAGE: Criticism of TV shows in general! I enjoyed Davies' run at the start, thought both he and Tennant's performance got... lazy, self-indulgent. Then Davies wrote Midnight, one of the best episodes of the whole series so far. Of his time as show-runner, it was Moffatt's scripts that most impressed me - so I'm entirely up for his angle & enjoying what I've seen to date.

    I just think sometimes the fans can come up with theories and angles that a showrunner under time-pressure might not have a chance to come up with. Not always, of course - there's been some awful fanwank too - but let's compare fan theories about what LOST was up to with how the show actually ended, as an example.

    Dronecraft: I'm going with 'River saw reflection of Silent in Rory's eyes' for that. Yes, she's that badass.
  12.  (9570.172)
    Via IO9:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1382802/Doctor-Who-scares-1m-viewers-5m-tune-in.html#ixzz1LQgZ9J5k

    The only point I think is valid is that the new series IS very noob unfriendly. (Parents will always freak out over their kids. (As they should))
  13.  (9570.173)
    I enjoyed Davies' run at the start, thought both he and Tennant's performance got... lazy, self-indulgent.

    I think Davies and the writers just got lazy and let Tennant and Tate camp it up. But even then they still had as many great episodes as Moffat's first series did, because some of those episodes really sucked despite sincere effort not to.
    •  
      CommentAuthorNickDonald
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2011
     (9570.174)
    I enjoyed these first two episodes. The writing, characterisation and performances were much more solid than anything from the last series. That said, I have some concerns.

    Firstly: Doctor Who has always walked a fine line in terms of scares and violence, often pushing up against that line and on occasion, putting its toes over the line. That line also provides a guide to how "adult" (for want of a better word) the subject matter gets. I feel these two episodes blatantly crossed that line without serving the story in any meaningful way. For a start: episode one's cliffhanger relied on Amy picking up a gun and firing at a little girl with the intent to kill. Considering that event didn't roll on as immediate action in the following episode, surely an equally effective cliffhanger would have seen the astronaut girl bearing down on our heroes, knowing that she'd already killed the Doctor would have been threat enough.

    Secondly: The start of episode two was unrelentingly bleak. Too much so. Seeing, quite clearly, Amy and Rory shot to death and being treated like so much offal in body bags could have been dealt with more subtly. Doctor Who has a long history of being very, very careful about people shooting other people (not aliens) with guns. They could have convinced us of their deaths just as completely in other ways.

    And lastly: yes, the Doctor has committed genocide before, but he's never been so smug and carefree about it. Someone mentioned how mean he was to the Family of Blood, and sure he was, after going to the effort of becoming human to avoid it. It's just one of those things that weakens the rest of the piece: River worrying about the Doctor seeing her action hero, laser gun, killing spree becomes meaningless with what happened seconds before.

    In terms of the ongoing story: obviously they're on the cusp of two different realities. One where everything happens as we've seen it and the Doctor gets killed in 2011 and one where he doesn't. Everything else is quite simply window dressing for those two events. As long as Moffat and Co. are a little more wary of where the line is and don't get perpetually bogged down in their clever story arc, the rest of the series should be quite entertaining.

    As long as there isn't another cliffhanger involving someone who shouldn't be shooting a gun shooting a gun [the Doctor last year, Amy this year]
  15.  (9570.175)
    Erm, Nick, about your first point...you did watch Davies' episodes, right? I mean, thus far we've had a death of the Doctor which is bound to be reversed somehow, Amy fire at a little girl mistakenly while panicked and afraid, and a handful of the Silence on Earth being killed off, with the implication that the others will flee, regroup and re-plan.

    I do recall the Doctor murdering the last of an entire species in the very first of RTD's run, and numerous masses of people and/or aliens being killed off in almost every episode after, sometimes graphically - see also the second episode of RTD's run, where the Doctor personally exploded a person to death - and quite often, it did nothing to serve the plot save to make the point that we wouldn't be seeing this or that alien again. (Except, of course, in the irritating numerous cases of the Daleks). I recall seeing the "Starship Titanic" special with my family - two of whom were 5 and 7 - and my Mum shockingly asking, 'THIS is Christmas Tea-Time entertainment?!' when it appeared that the Tenth Doctor was unbelievably inept at keeping anyone at all alive.

    So, yes - less walking a fine line and more skipping over a railroad track. If anything, Moffat has actually toned down the graphic violence of the previous series.
  16.  (9570.176)
    There's children's programming, and then there's children's programming from 1961.
    •  
      CommentAuthortedcroland
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2011
     (9570.177)
    I don't really see the point in opining RTD's run, either. RTD wrote some great stuff, and he wrote some terrible stuff. He's a writer; they can't all be winners. If this season's big reveal is terrible, I doubt it will be as bad as the whole world clapping the Doctor back to life like in "The Last of the Time Lords."

    The violence issue is interesting, though. It seems the contention is between what Doctor Who is and what it's meant to be. Doctor Who is now just as much for adult fans as it is for children (manchildren notwithstanding). Responding to this by having some pretty grim violence and horror is not exactly unacceptable, it's just different than what the show was before. I'd be willing to bet a lot of those older stories had an incredible disadvantage of budget, thereby making the monsters look silly instead of scary.
    • CommentAuthorbiglig
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2011
     (9570.178)
    One of the themes of the "new Who" is the Doctor's tremendous frustration at his inability to save everyone...

    Aside: being 42, and hence ancient, I was going to make a point about the shock people of my generation had when Adric died, but stupid Wikipedia points out that of the First Doctors 10 Companions:

    Four manage to get back to their own time.
    Two leave the Doctor in order to become god-like leaders of primitive societies.
    One is kicked out of the Tardis "for her own good".
    One has a nervous breakdown
    One kills herself - becoming the first to die, back in 1965.
    And one is...er...killed by the Doctor.
  19.  (9570.179)
    And the one kicked out was his granddaughter, so there you go...
    •  
      CommentAuthorcurb
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2011
     (9570.180)
    I doubt it will be as bad as the whole world clapping the Doctor back to life like in "The Last of the Time Lords."


    See, big soppy bastard that I am, I liked that bit. Which just goes to prove that this show is never going to please all the people all the time.

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