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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Doctor Who Season 3 UK (No Spoilers)

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10:46 / 27.05.07

I didn't like the scarecrows because they weren't scary to me at all, and you'd think chameolonic bodysnatching predator-style aliens would have soldiers that could at least walk faster than a stumble and you'd probably give them weapons, but Jessica Hyne (still Stevenson in my mind) was fucking great. Top episode, the Baines eyebrow & the sniffing will be used for a while in my house no doubt.

15:12 / 27.05.07

Human Nature is the first episode I've watched that made me think: "Ah. Dr Who's back on television."

16:48 / 27.05.07

oh okay, scarecrows aren't frightening, how silly of me.

try watching this with the sound down then, toughies.

17:14 / 27.05.07

Scarecrows have always frightened me

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

17:18 / 27.05.07

Yeah. Scarecrows are definitely scary in my opinion. I think it's something that's set off by the fact they look almost human but not quite.

09:16 / 28.05.07

So that was tupping brilliant, and had me both engaged and squee-ing all the way through. Found Smith very touching, really; in many senses, such an ordinary man, and yet, and yet - he personifies the Doctor's "hyyyoooomans!" sentiments wonderfully, and far better than Tennant's gurning ever did.

I liked the acknolwedgement in the rest of the book of the Whoniverse - I said whilst watching it that the only thing that could make it better would be if some of the other schoolmasters were played by former doctors - so the idea of the previous incarnations might have a grounding in reality, too.

Re: "he who would valiant be"; it's a very appropriate choice, given it's known as The Pilgrim Hymn, and is excerpted from A Pilgrim's Progress. Full text here. I like the Doctor-as-pilgrim idea.

Can't wait for next week, that's for sure.

miss wonderstarr

17:57 / 02.06.07

Maybe I'm just a bit emotionally shellshocked from that episode, but I'd say it was not only the best Doctor Who I've ever seen, but that moments of it ~ especially the stunningly grim invention involved in what the Doctor did to the Family, and the startling, sometimes chilling departures from expected Who convention in terms of the flashforwards, voiceovers, shifting perspectives and time-leaps, not to mention some striking and dramatic camerawork (Doctor walking away from the scarecrow) ~ rank with some of the best novels, comics and films I can remember.

miss wonderstarr

17:58 / 02.06.07

In short, I would really like to see it win some sort of award.

18:10 / 02.06.07

Yes.

That was really very, very good indeed. That was considerably better than most of the Doctor Who stories I've seen.

That *nearly* knocks "Genesis of the Daleks" off my personal top spot.

18:12 / 02.06.07

I've only just realised that this is the same Paul Cornell who's been writing Wisdom, and will soon be writing Excalibur.

He good.

18:50 / 02.06.07

want to echo wonderstarr - absolutely one of the finest things I've seen on telly, ever. thought lost was great last week, really enjoying life on mars... but neither have come even remotely close to the utter radness of that. wow.

miss wonderstarr

19:15 / 02.06.07

This might sound like a strange comparison, but on reflection it reminded me of a classic Alan Moore comic in its storytelling, its invention, its emotional power and cosmic perspective. Not a specific one, I mean. Just that sort of Swamp Thing/Miracleman period.

19:46 / 02.06.07

It felt very comic booky, in a very good way

19:46 / 02.06.07

I liked that Joan saw the end of the episode from a reversed perspective. We get the Doctor back and we're glad for it. She loses the man she loves, and a complete stranger comes back through the door. Wearing his face. Unsettling stuff.

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

20:06 / 02.06.07

Yes it was rather spiffy wasn't it. I particularly loved John Smith's fear of what amounted to actually dying, and quite loved that looked at from a certain point of view it showed the Doctor in a pretty dodgy light - ie his willingness to create an innocent temporary person, who would ultimately have to cease to exist pretty rapidly. Even if his intention was to show mercy to the family it still kind of struck me as one of the coldest and most ruthless things the Doctor's ever done.

20:31 / 02.06.07

Yes, really bloody fantastic stuff; I missed 'Father's Day', but it seems Cornell is the chap for the emotional hardhitters; poor John Smith - you're nobody, John. I started welling up around then, but the abstruse punishments, something like maybe Morpheus would've come up with in Sandman, only, well, better brought me back around.

I suppose all the Great War cadences, the adumbration of the shells and trenches, goes without saying but it was really very well-done in any case; Latimer's fate sold me a dummy because I was expecting the old pocketwatch bulletstopping breastshield chestnut, and it wasn't, was it? Such a sucker for those appearing through time, through someone's lifetime, bits that 'Girl in the Fireplace' perfected, something so very primal about it, yr last and oldest friend, always there - wasn't sure if Latimer was supposed to be the Brigadier from those old Terrance Dicks books, I suspect not, and it doesn't matter awfully.

Wasn't Baines delivery good, though? What a horror.

21:12 / 02.06.07

That was nearly absolutely perfect. I particularly liked the way Joan's "Can you change back?" echoed Rose's very same question during the Children in Need mini-episode. The Doctor's punishment of the Family featured some of the most beautifully shot, almost abstract images in New Who-especially the punishments of the daughter and mother.

21:16 / 02.06.07

I enjoyed it, a lot, but I think a bit less than many here - as Der Falke pointed out, the punishments meted out by the Doctor were very Gaimanesque, too much so for my tastes.

The score during the rememberence scenes were jarring and knocked me out of the narrative.

23:24 / 02.06.07

Wasn't Baines delivery good, though? What a horror.

Baines was brilliant - easily the best villain that New Who has given us and probably one of the best Who baddies, full stop. Just the right side of weird to be alien, just the right side of human to be terrifying. Stole every single scene he was in - as, for that matter, did the kid playing Latimer.

Liked it a lot. Felt it wasn't quite as perfect as the first part - a tiny bit too much of the running about, a crappy, pantomime death pose from the headmaster and a Doctor who didn't quite gel with anything that we've seen of him up until this. I know that they're trying to have this underlying lack of control in the character, but it's only previously appeared in the Runaway Bride and, even then, his actions weren't anything like as vicious as they were here - these were acts of pre-meditated cruelty and revenge, and that jarred. The rest of the series needs to build on that side of the character, otherwise it's going to make for a very strange episode in context.

As a bit of tv in its own right, though, it was excellent.

miss wonderstarr

03:56 / 03.06.07

Ironically, I was going to say exactly that about the punishments ~ that they were Gaimanesque ("He hid her in a mirror. Have you ever seen something seem to move, in the back of a mirror? Do you... see?") but that just wouldn't have seemed much of a recommendation. Somehow, it worked here. Anyway, Gaiman's solemnly playful, storyteller-grim prose is arguably quite similar to Alan Moore's 80s style.

05:17 / 03.06.07

Holy smokes, what a heartbreaker. Best acting I've seen in the show yet. I was aching right along with her as she had to struggle with what she could see (the man she loved, his eyes and face) and what she knew (the choices the two men made, and what those choices made them). A totally brutal lose-lose situation. The way his expression changed when she nailed him! How often does he attempt to seduce somebody and get knocked back like that? But a baffling move on his part...

What exactly was he thinking when he asked her along? Did he harbor some hope of a poly-in-space relationship? Did he know she'd say no and ask just so that she could go through the necessary process of pulling herself together to do the right thing, and thereby have collected her strength, which she'd be needing since he was about to fuck off with Martha? Did he think he'd just pick her up and drop Martha off with a 'peace out'?

I am still not a fan of Martha, but this episode is definitely key in terms of my being able to take her and her feelings more seriously.

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

05:38 / 03.06.07

I think the punishments were okay - mainly because we know that at some point in the past, probably when the first Doctor looked young he had a prediliction for imprisoning demons and monsters for eternity - this must have been the case since occasionally the Doctor is faced with something awful that he imprisoned long ago that escapes - so it's okat by me to see him actually do the imprisoning.

Also it goes along with the Doctors morality and indeed the general timelord morality that eternal imprisonment, even in the most unpleasant of prisons is more moral than killing.

miss wonderstarr

05:50 / 03.06.07

They were particularly and deliberately cruel prisons, though... and the mirror one involved unnecessary nastiness in that Sister-of-Mine's fleeting background presence would unnerve a lot of innocent people.

However, if we're meant to believe that the Doctor is this terrible, towering god, punisher and warrior, furious and cold, then we needed to see some solid evidence of it rather than just be told.

I don't remember the Doctor ever being portrayed this way before though... there was some aspect of it in Ecclestone, especially versus the Daleks, but (as someone who's been constantly aware of Doctor Who though not really followed any incarnation except Tom Baker) I always thought the Doctor had been an avuncular, eccentric figure, not a tragic wanderer and merciless avenger.

Tennant really impressed me in this episode ~ by demonstrating (I haven't seen him in anything else) the extent to which his Doctor is an act. Mr Smith was so entirely different in delivery, mannerisms and expressions that the brief slip into Doctorese (about Latimer's low-level telepathy and the watch's perception filter) was like an uncanny glimpse into a 2nd personality.

miss wonderstarr

05:57 / 03.06.07

Just been looking at the scan of the Doctor's "Journal of Impossible Things", as I woke up at 5am and have had nothing better to do:

"I have been different, it is not like remembering one's youth, it is like dreaming yourself as a ? parson? or a clown. Not yourself playing those parts, but actively being that other person. I have inhabited the clothes of scholars and fathers and... I may have played cricket for England! that is one of the most important dreams, not trivial I am sure of it."

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

06:21 / 03.06.07

I don't remember the Doctor ever being portrayed this way before though... there was some aspect of it in Ecclestone, especially versus the Daleks, but (as someone who's been constantly aware of Doctor Who though not really followed any incarnation except Tom Baker) I always thought the Doctor had been an avuncular, eccentric figure, not a tragic wanderer and merciless avenger.

The McCoy Doctor was certainly fully capable of all this and worse, the chap had a certain proclivity to commit genocide whilst making quips and to manipulate everyone like toys. Perhaps it shows just a little that this weeks story was originally written as a McCoy story.

miss wonderstarr

06:29 / 03.06.07

Very interesting. I must admit I have some problem reconciling the galactic avenger, shining like a supernova, chill as a black hole and so on, with the chirpy fella who's all "Ohhhhhh! that'll be your plasma-enhancers messing around with the etherial accelerators. Simple fourth-dimensional differential geometry, what do they teach you these days! Hop on, we've just got time to watch Oliver Cromwell being beheaded before supper."

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

06:37 / 03.06.07

Yeah - McCoy asked Davros if he was in it for 'unlimited rice pudding', just before the trap he'd set to cause the genocide of the Daleks was sprung, so there's definitely a precedent for combining extreme ruthlesness with wacky banter.

07:51 / 03.06.07

What exactly was he thinking when he asked her along? Did he harbor some hope of a poly-in-space relationship?

No, I think it was more of the Doctor's... cluelessness/alieness, for lack of better words. In the same way that he invited Mickey to join him and Rose on the Tardis accentuating the love triangle, The Doctor just wanted to keep the people he liked close to him.

10:20 / 03.06.07

Very interesting. I must admit I have some problem reconciling the galactic avenger, shining like a supernova, chill as a black hole and so on, with the chirpy fella who's all "Ohhhhhh! that'll be your plasma-enhancers messing around with the etherial accelerators. Simple fourth-dimensional differential geometry, what do they teach you these days! Hop on, we've just got time to watch Oliver Cromwell being beheaded before supper."

There's story I read once about another impossibly nice bloke who suddenly broke with character when he handmade a whip out of bits of leather to beat up a bunch of bankers and throw their shit everywhere just because they set up in a place he called sacred.

Just... unnecessary.

10:27 / 03.06.07

Great episode, by the way. Loved it all.

miss wonderstarr

10:53 / 03.06.07

There's story I read once about another impossibly nice bloke who suddenly broke with character when he handmade a whip out of bits of leather to beat up a bunch of bankers and throw their shit everywhere just because they set up in a place he called sacred.

I think I see where you're going there, but if you knew Jesus in real life as a calm, patient storyteller, and someone told you he was the King of Kings, Son of God, who was going to be sitting with his Father in Heaven judging your passage after death, you'd also find it a bit of a conceptual leap.

I'm not saying it's not possible for one man to be both things, or rather for those galactic/celestial forces to appear in a human male shape. In fact, your example is good! But it is also an example of something that might be hard to reconcile.

11:09 / 03.06.07

I think it's OK for him to have aspects that are hard to reconcile. The Doctor is not safe. He isn't tame. The mysteries of The Doctor outweigh the answers of men.

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

11:21 / 03.06.07

Yeah - there's a really fine line between expertly portraying the fine line between a complex and advanced alien mind, and just passing off contradictory elements that result from bad writing/acting - but I think the latest two parter fell very comfortably on the good side of that line.

12:24 / 03.06.07

Very interesting. I must admit I have some problem reconciling the galactic avenger, shining like a supernova, chill as a black hole and so on, with the chirpy fella who's all "Ohhhhhh! that'll be your plasma-enhancers messing around with the etherial accelerators. Simple fourth-dimensional differential geometry, what do they teach you these days! Hop on, we've just got time to watch Oliver Cromwell being beheaded before supper."

"Laughing on purpose at the darkness."

I wanna come back and weigh in on this a bit better when I've got the time. I thought that two-parter was incredibly good for a lot of reasons. At the moment I just want to big-up Baines as well. He was incredible, all his mannerisms skewed just the right side of wrong. Somebody give that boy a lollypop.

At the same time though, he was just the scenery-chewer amongst a uniformly excellent cast.

All Acting Regiment

12:28 / 03.06.07

What exactly was he thinking when he asked her along?

When he was Smith, he could love her; when he was the doctor, the only way of relating to her he could imagine was as companion.

Superb episode. One of the best ever. Loved the Family. Loved the punishments. Loved the boys' choir singing in the background when they were shooting the scarecrows. Thought the scarecrows could have looked different but the idea was still very very scary.

Where can one find Smith's notebook?

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