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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Doctor Who, Season Four, Non-spoiler Thread

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21:56 / 13.05.08

I liked the toy mouse, too - it was one of a number of tiny little nods back to the old series in these last few episodes. Small enough that they have absolutely no negative impact if you don't see them for what they are, which is just how these things should be.

It's just that if you're going to have a go about a specific logical inconsistency or lack of explanation in Doctor Who, and not mention any others, then you can't have been watching the rest of the episode very closely. They're riddled with the things.

In fact, it's pretty much built on one.

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

23:48 / 13.05.08

Randy, drinks are on me. Amen.

08:31 / 14.05.08

Just for the record that was the point I was trying to make, badly, with a lot of snark that made me look like a git. Sorry everyone.

All Acting Regiment

13:28 / 14.05.08

That's fine. It can be a bit annoying when things 'just happen' without any comforting layer of pseudo-explanation, but then I think pseudo-explanation is a) all we ever got when things didn't 'just happen' and b) all we really need in a program like this (but not on the news).

To put it another way, in the original series, the existence of horrible primeval monsters in a hole in the ground in Sussex was never really logically explained, but we were given a justification for it (they had survived since the Permian period, in an escape-pod from a spaceship, etc, etc) which did its job - an excuse to see monsters and be frightened by them - perfectly well. Maybe we could see more of these, and perhaps see them done a little more sincerely. 'It's a beam which transports people' rather than 'oh, a transporter beam'.

Whisky Priestess

12:19 / 15.05.08

I liked the "daughter" (and was pretty sure even before watching the episode that she would be a clone, not his "real" daughter) but would have liked the weirdness of the fact that she's just like him, but female - rather than her acting rather like a long-lost biological daughter - to have been played up.

The dolphins-with-gasmasks Hath looked a bit rubbery and I was thoroughly underwhelmed when Martha's mate managed to drown in about two inches of black puddle (crappest death scene this series, if not of all time) but as has been said above, we needed to see the conflict from both sides. Martha still basically a personality vacuum, poor lamb.

Jenny's death was really the aspect of the episode that narked me off most - mainly because
a) I never believed for one second that she was actually dead and
b) despite having two perfectly good mechanisms for reviving her, (the second heart kicking in and regeneration) they chose neither, but instead did this stupid thing with the terraforming gas-breath or whatever it was. How the fuck was that meant to work? Was she being homoformed or Galliformed from the inside or something?

Also, bloody lucky for the Doctor that smashing the sphere worked. It was a bit of a long shot.

11:55 / 16.05.08

Looks like there's going to be another Eurovision break this year. Sigh.

Hopefully we'll get another kickass trailer for the rest of the season like we did last year.

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

15:51 / 16.05.08

I had originally read that there was going to be a break tomorrow (of course this was a few weeks ago) so at least the break is later than I had thought.

10:57 / 17.05.08

The break makes sense. The viewing figures were down on the episodes dshown during the first two years on Eurovision night and this year it's part one of a Moffat story. It's feared people won't tune into a two parter they've not seen the first part of so the figures would be down for a fortnight.

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

03:36 / 18.05.08

I'm sorry...why aren't we discussing the lovely and clever new Who? I was quite amused by it.

09:12 / 18.05.08

Oh but we are talking about the new Who, "We do it with Mirrors".

10:52 / 18.05.08

That was my favourite episode this year, but then I'm a sucker for Gareth Roberts' writing style. That was quite a new style of episode, wasn't it? Not just the whole Who-dunnit formula (which has been done fairly comprehensively in other Who media), but the full on comedy stylings and dancing with self-parody. I loved how the episode took the piss of the new series' tendency to flash back to really recent events, with Lady Eddison describing her recent chat with the Doctor via a flashback. Also loved the hilarious Doctor with quiver and bow rescuing Charlemagne from an insane super computer.

There was more potential arc-stuff too, with the coda about how people are remembered. That links up with the Pompeii coda, the Ood episode and (tenuously) with how Rattigan is remembered.

Whisky Priestess

11:23 / 18.05.08

I thought it was a jolly romp but that the vespiform absorbing Agatha Christie's mindset via the amulet blah blah fishcakes was a little tenuous, to say the least - or rather the most outlandish and lame conceit in a fairly whacked-out episode.

I've seen the ginger vicar before in something. Thought he was good. In fact all of them were, and I enjoyed the "Real Inspector Hound" parodying of the country-house murder-mystery genre. Donna ace in this one and I liked the Charles Dickens ref. I also liked the unreliability of people's accounts of where they were contrasted with their flashbacks - Lady Eddison drinking, her son whooping it up with the footman, her husband looking at nudie ladies etc. - was great fun.

I don't suppose anyone else spotted the dialogue laced with Christie book titles? I enjoyed it at first and then it rather clunked on me every time, like a Whose Line is it Anyway game played by the writers. With themselves. Probably while they were playing with themselves. I heard:

- Cards on the Table
- They Do it with Mirrors
- Death Comes as the End
- The Moving Finger
- The Secret Adversary
- Murder at the Vicar('s r)age
- Sparkling Cyanide
- Crooked House
- Dead Man's Folly

And I'm pretty sure I missed some.
(OK, so I read too much Christie when I was 13 ...)

It looked gorgeous, although 20s boyish styles do nothing for Tate, and reminded me of comforting Sunday evening telly at its best. Bagsy they do Sherlock Holmes next!

11:46 / 18.05.08

The Ginger vicar is one of those ultra-recognisable faces who never seem to have a lead role. I'm sure he's the bloke who hires Brent to do that dreadful motivational speech in series 2 of The Office.

12:00 / 18.05.08

We're getting a two minute long trailer next week. According to somebody who has seen it, it features (Here be spoilers of the massive variety): [+] [-] Spoiler Hope you didn't read that, if you want to avoid spoilers. The trailer's going to be on next week just before Eurovision.

Poke it with a stick

12:18 / 18.05.08

The reverend's transformation owed a wee bit to one of the few episodes of "Tales of the Unexpected" I can remember - Royal Jelly. Hearing Timothy West's increasingly buzzy sibilants seems very similar to how it was done here.

I found myself cringing at some of the more slapstick moments in this one, but remembered it IS still a kids' show at heart and managed to rein in my adult snarkability just enough to enjoy it.

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

13:04 / 18.05.08

It really was good fun. I caught all the Christie refs in it and it was one of those eps that I would have enjoyed had I my fiance by my side. (It just seemed like that sort of episode.)

16:08 / 18.05.08

Whisky I think everybody noticed the Christie titles. My partner spotted a couple without having read any Christie just going from the way they clunked into dialogue. We talied
Cards On The Table
Nemesis
The Secret Adversary
Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
Death Comes as the End
Dead Man's Folly
Cat Among the Pigeons
They Do It With Mirrors
Sparkling Cyanide
N or M
Endless Night
Crooked House
Taken At The Flood
The Moving Finger

17:52 / 18.05.08

Plus, walking around for the whole episode, big as you like, was the Doctor: The Man in the Brown Suit.

08:19 / 19.05.08

Do you think they just pasted the titles into Final Draft and then wrote the episode around them? Because it felt a little like that...

Whisky Priestess

09:05 / 19.05.08

Oh God yes ... Endless Night. That was a clunker.

Wikipedia on the episode has all of them plus the ones explicitly referred to (Murder on the Orient Express etc.) I thought maybe they'd gone for broke and tried to get ALL of the titles in, but alas no. What poverty of ambition.

Unfortunately the titles were SO shoehorned in and out-of-context that I don't think the episode can possibly have been written around them. Still, jolly good fun, even if it could have been a bit more subtle on the titles.

All Acting Regiment

15:04 / 19.05.08

That was ace. I feel two things at least will always work in Who:

a) 1890s - 1930s England, in the middle of civilisation (or 'civilisation'), with something dark about to break in, and literary references. See The Talons of Weng Chian, Pyramids of Mars, etc. etc.

b) A quarry with concrete and guns, where people go underground.

19:07 / 19.05.08

Coulda done with a bit more scarifying when it came to the monster - giant wasp from Waspworld wasn't doing it for me, and the CGI got a bit crappy when it broke into the room and started harazzzzzing Donna - but otherwise it was fun. Rest of my family loved it, mainly because of Tate. She's perfect - nails everything that's asked of her. I hope to hell that she stays on for another series.

22:53 / 19.05.08

I think she's brilliant too, but I'd be wary of having her about after Tennant leaves because I think a lot of it is the chemistry between them. I don't think Rose ever gelled with him the way she did with Eccleston.

Thought that was solid good fun. It was a bit bonkers in places, a little rough around the edges here and there, but such fucking great knockabout fun! Agree that the alien could have looked a bit more alien-waspy than just jinormous-waspy.

Have to wait two weeks now, but when we get back, we've got a Double Moffat as directed by Euros Lyn (who I am forgiving the little "Phoo Action Indiscretion")!

I've started saving up all my masturbations!

Our Lady Has Left the Building

04:51 / 20.05.08

I enjoyed that, but then I have a massive crush on Fenella Woolgar so the whole episode could have been her reading the phone book while frowning quizzically and I'd have been happy.

Points off for finding an excuse for Donna and the Doctor to kiss though.

14:55 / 20.05.08

Steven Moffat new Dr Who Producer.

It's not easy to type while doing cartwheels...

15:19 / 20.05.08

FUCKING YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

15:33 / 20.05.08

Am I the only one who didn't want that? Can his quality scripting be maintained when he's writing half a dozen episodes?

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

15:41 / 20.05.08

Now that you've brought it up, DXB, that will be my major concern.

16:19 / 20.05.08

Shhhhhhhhh!

You're ruining it!

16:20 / 20.05.08

For what it's worth (and it was a long time ago, so I can't reliably comment on quality) he did write every single episode of Press Gang.

uncle retrospective

16:33 / 20.05.08

Press Gang was fucking ace.

17:57 / 20.05.08

He probably won't have to write 5 or 6 episodes, and might just stick to 2 or 3 a year, delegating the rest. I wonder what writers he'll recruit for the job. I was sort of half-hoping for Gareth Roberts as show-runner, but Moffat will be unbelievably brilliant, I'm sure.

21:43 / 20.05.08

I can handle him staying on just a couple of episodes a season as long as he's the creative director. I really want to see what he can do when in complete control of an entire season's arc.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

08:03 / 21.05.08

Indescribably happy, it's not the guy from Torchwood or CSI: Doncaster.

10:36 / 21.05.08

Yeah, this is indeed great news. He won't write the whole season, but he will be in overall charge of plotting the it. Can anyone link to any good interviews with the man? He's up there with Dai Sato, Yoji Enokido and Hideaki Anno as writers that I'd like to hear speak about their creative processes.

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