BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Doctor Who, Series Fnarg +1

  
  

Page: (1)234

 
 
■
19:32 / 23.04.11
I rather enjoyed that. The idea of an alien that changes state the moment you look away might be a bit of a rehash on the part of the Moff, but I am enjoying the fact that they have felt like they can dispense with a fair amount of exposition at last, and assume that the audience know what the set-up is.
I know this place is utterly dead, but somehow Twitter just isn't enough for this stuff and, unlike Big Brother, I think the people who used to come to these threads might just haunt again.
So, it seems there is a species of alien (or perhaps Silurian-style original occupants) who keep their existence secret by telepathically wiping branze. Small child has somehow found them and, using stolen space tech, has made a suit he can protect himself with and can survive 50 years to zap the Doctor. No, that doesn't make sense, does it. It's going to be River in there, isn't it? All those clues about their relationship going forward and backward in time, the one in the suit is a younger River from a later episode, and that's the crime she's banged up for.
Oh, sod it, no-one else is here. /closes the door
 
 
A fall of geckos
22:05 / 23.04.11
I think a few people still keep an eye on this place.

I liked the episode. The inclusion of the Tardis type craft from The Lodger makes me wonder how much groundwork was laid in the last series for this one. Especially when you consider the possibility that these aliens could have been standing in the middle of the bloody Tardis, and no one would have memories of them...
 
 
Poke it with a stick
22:50 / 23.04.11
Yup, definitely a few lurkers hanging in there.

I need to rewatch it and digest a bit, but there were some nice bits in there - a lot to screw with my head too, though.

I mean to say, Amy pregnant? The TARDIS without a crew reappearing somewhere else? One generation of the Doctor lasting 200 years?
 
 
Triplets
22:51 / 23.04.11
That is quite a chilling possibility. Moffat does love using the "thing in the corner of your eye" as a good way of scaring peoples. Also, as a scary as The Silence's auto-amnesia was it was suprisingly effective at pulling out a few laughs. "All clear!" indeed.

I'm just not sure what killing the Doctor is going to accomplish. Telling, however, that Pond says, "it's a clone... gotta be a clone right?" about his dead body, seeing as how we're going into cloning territory a few weeks from now. Hm. Hmmm!

Watched this at the girlfriend's house with a lot of the kid sister's running around so may have missed a few bits. Will have to rewatch.
 
 
iamus
23:02 / 23.04.11
As Spatula drew our attention to last thread....

From The Lodger:




From The Eleventh Hour:



Also, Amy's front door is veeeeery similar to that door in the lodger. Throw in any of those Leadworth anachronisms from way back?
 
 
Triplets
23:05 / 23.04.11
Sod it, I'm rewatching it now.

Call backs: The Doctor waving at people through time, appearing on a Laural and Hardy sketch. Similar to Tennant and his Angel's dvd extras and River Song's "Hello Sweetie" carved onto the oldest stone in the universe.

Excellent costume selection in this one. River in Tardis blue denim, Rory in green, Pond in red check and the Doctor in a light earth tone. Even Canton in his darker brown/black suit.
 
 
Kali, Queen of Kitteh
01:40 / 24.04.11
Will post extensively later but:

Love the callback to the Lodger and Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead. There were some other shout-outs too but am entirely too punchy and tired to go into detail until I am more awake.
 
 
e-n
16:02 / 24.04.11
We still live!

Very dense episode or at least it felt like there was a lot to it.

It's going to be River in there, isn't it? All those clues about their relationship going forward and backward in time, the one in the suit is a younger River from a later episode, and that's the crime she's banged up for.

Oh WHOA!Mind Blown!
I am totally psyched for the rest of the season!
 
 
■
17:37 / 24.04.11
Also note her "of course not" when she misses the spacesuit with every shot. Especially when we've just been shown she's enough of a crack shot to take the stetson off with ease. If that's an earlier her, she couldn't have hit because then she wouldn't be around to do the shooting. Going to have to watch again to check her expression and dialogue in that section.
 
 
Kali, Queen of Kitteh
17:39 / 24.04.11
Yeah, I agree that River's crime is she kills (killed) the Doctor, but in reference to the Silence, I had the idea this morning is given their ability to tamper with human memory, they may be the very reason why no one on Earth remembers many of the events the Doctor alluded to when he first met Amy.
 
 
■
18:26 / 24.04.11
"The Legs, the Nose and Mrs Robinson." Tee hee.
 
 
■
18:35 / 24.04.11
Hang on. There was an alien watching by the lake. What's the betting they have all forgotten a large chunk of something that happened while they were there. Possibly the Doctor explaining to them all what was about to happen and what they need to do. Aha. Watch the moon. One minute it's there... Time has passed
(Mind you, having said that, the sun flips into the wrong place as well, but I'd guess that's just a continuity slip)
 
 
Kali, Queen of Kitteh
18:50 / 24.04.11
You're onto something. I will need to rewatch it, mainly because sometimes in all the excitement I forget the little things.
 
 
■
18:55 / 24.04.11
So, the space suit somehow shields the child (who I'm guessing is in there in 1969, could it be a very young River?) from the effects of the Silence. Could be something visual or scent based, but I'd guess it's aural, especially given the name: somehow zapping the cochlea, which is pretty closely linked to the brain stem. If you're in a space suit, it's hermetically sealed so sound waves aren't going to get in.
Another thing that's interesting is the way Amy gets nauseous. The cochlea and semicircular canals are linked to motion sickness, so perhaps the fact she's already a bit sick means the signal isn't working fully.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
18:55 / 24.04.11
I hope it's got nothing to do with River. There's already been far too much of her and we know for a fact that we'll be getting a shitload more.

The Doctor at the start being a 200 years older version has to be a fake-out, too, for a whole buch of reasons.

Overall, I enjoyed it, but the plot seemed to be lacking something. Inevitable, for the opening episode in a new series, but as the first in a two-parter I didn't feel as though we'd really been given enough to talk about or go on, besides the buried ship being exactly the same design as the one in The Lodger. A lot of wtf bits, with few hints - that I could see, anyway - as to what the hell was happening. It was very nicely filmed, though - looked suitably expensive.

Is this the start of the series, then, or a holiday special? I've managed to stick to a complete media blackout as far as Who is concerned - didn't know this was even on until a day or so beforehand. Moffat was talking about having two six-episode mini-series this year, rather than all twelve/thirteen eps in a row. Is that still happening?
 
 
■
18:59 / 24.04.11
Aha, when River gets a double dose she feels sick too! On to something indeedy.
 
 
■
19:11 / 24.04.11
So the tunnels go through the whole of the Earth. Possibly because they're the dimensionally transcendent corridors of a proto-Tardis that blew itself inside out when it materialised inside the planet? Trying to recall what happened to the one in the Lodger, it got dematerialised, but did the Doctor say where it was headed?
 
 
■
19:40 / 24.04.11
And Spatula, yes, start of a new series, and it's split in two as they said.
 
 
Kali, Queen of Kitteh
10:21 / 25.04.11
Overall, I enjoyed it, but the plot seemed to be lacking something. Inevitable, for the opening episode in a new series, but as the first in a two-parter I didn't feel as though we'd really been given enough to talk about or go on, besides the buried ship being exactly the same design as the one in The Lodger. A lot of wtf bits, with few hints - that I could see, anyway - as to what the hell was happening. It was very nicely filmed, though - looked suitably expensive.

EXACTLY.

One of Matt's chief complaints after watching it was, "It was good, but wow, it was really hectic. There seemed to be too much going on."

I thought about it for a few minutes and then came up with a possibility as to why it seemed so frantic.

America.

This is the first Who series that's being heavily promoted in the US--the constant background wallpaper on the AV Club, anyone?--and also the first time it premiered on the same day in the UK. Usually, if you've been watching the new run of Who in the States, you'd have to wait anywhere from a week to two weeks before you could catch up. So my feeling was, given that American interest in this series is higher, the starting episode seemed to pander to American taste a little too much. The majority of our programming requires that you have a "hook" so to speak. There must! be! action! if you want to grab the viewer that has been inundated with constant teasers/commercials/news articles/bus ads/etc.

The only place where my reasoning falls apart comes when Matt replied that okay, maybe you're right, but still, the premiere episode is chockablock with callbacks to previous episodes which the new viewing public may not have seen. I responded that that may well be, but it could also be a pretty compelling reason for the new viewing public to buy/download/borrow DVD sets of previous seasons to catch up.
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
23:10 / 25.04.11
Yeah, I agree that River's crime is she kills (killed) the Doctor,..

I think that's what they're heavily hinting at, but I will be very disappointed if its something so tame and predictable. I expect more from these people.
 
 
Kali, Queen of Kitteh
14:04 / 26.04.11
Don't we all.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
18:49 / 30.04.11
Epsiode Two. The things that I thought were wrong with Episode One, made worse.

Pacing. Christ, I wish Moffat would pause for a fucking breath. Seriously, that was all over the place. Twenty minutes in and I was still trying to digest what the hell was supposed to be going on with the "three weeks later" nonsense.

It worries me, because I can't see an awful lot of the show's supposedly intended audience being able to get a grip on what was happening. It's all very clever and very showy, but I honestly don't think it's particularly well aimed - with these two episodes, he's writing for an adult SF audience, not children. Bar the haunted house bits, which, again, I thought descended into a muddle.

Then there's the reuse of old ideas. Keep one alien in view at all times. Oh, you mean like with the Weeping Angels. Here's a device that lets you hear somebody's panicked, upsetting confusion so that Murray Gold can whip out his 'sad music' score. A lot like the electronic death echoes fom Silence in the Library, then.

And, once again, a bit of foreshadowing that exists in isolation, meaning that the audience is even more baffled. The little window opening in the door? Who the fuck knows? It'll be something to do with Amy's labour, no doubt, and it seems rather blatant that the little girl is her daughter, but these are ideas that go nowhere, because we've not been provided with any other hints. Contrast this to the much-discussed jacket/no-jacket discrepancy from last series, which planted a tiny little seed in the heads of the teeny number of people who noticed it. There's a big difference between something with that kind of remarkable subtlety and a scene like the one in this episode, which effectively hits you over the head with a puzzle-shaped cosh.

What we've got is a crossword puzzle with no clues, just the empty board. That's no fun.

Even so, I think I enjoyed it. It's just a bit difficult to tell. This series needs to slow the fuck down, to give its undoubtedly clever and effective ideas time to sink in and mature. Opening episodes tend to set the tone, though, so I'm starting to worry.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
19:00 / 30.04.11
Oh, one more thing. The business with River kissing the Doctor, then whatever the hell was supposed to be going on immediately afterwards.

What *was* supposed to be going on immediately afterwards? That scene smacked of pure Wrong to me - she knows his history inside-out, so there's no way she'd have made a mistake of that magnitude.
 
 
Kali, Queen of Kitteh
19:09 / 30.04.11
I stand by my original reason for all the rushedness. Still, not too bad but I agree with Sleazenation--he and I kept Twittering at each other as I watched it--that for such a Big Bad, that was terribly done insofar as disposing of them.

Anyway, lots of interesting ideas happening here but seriously, is it too much to ask to slow down and let it happen a bit more organically?

Also: little girl at the end? What the hell??
 
 
Jack Fear
01:29 / 01.05.11
Scattered thoughts only:

So Stephen Moffat was remaking They Live all along, I guess.

And the Doctor just committed genocide-by-proxy, and everybody's okay with that. Um. Yay?

Spatula: I reckon the wrongness of the River/Doctor kiss was kind of the point. It seems obvious to me that there's a timey-wimey discontinuity being set up here.

This season's long game: Let's say the timeline has split into two. Or call it Schrodinger's Tardis, the quantum box, with different possibilities in superposition. So the Doctor is both 907 years old, and 1200 years old; both alive and dead. Amy is, as the scanner indicates, both pregnant and not pregnant. River and the Doctor have kissed before, and have also have never kissed before; River's memories of the events are both correct and incorrect.

Other examples will doubtless reveal themselves as the season goes on, and the season will doubtless climax with a replay of the "other" Doctor's death, which will be necessary to repair the timeline.

As a side bonus, the in-show timeline will, I predict, be the one in which the Doctor and River never have a proper relationship, allowing the creators to cleverly sidestep the trap they have laid for themselves of showing how such a relationship might actually work. It will have never happened; River will forever be the mystery woman, the One Who Got Away--which is really the only way the character could ever possibly work, dramatically.
 
 
couch
08:52 / 01.05.11
We've not seen them kiss before though have we? She remembers kissing him, but he doesn't remember kissing her, so that means she'll never kiss him again. Quite poignant and subtle way to show it I thought, it seemed to follow on from last week's "One time I'll meet him and he'll not remember me at all, and I think that'll kill me" bit.
 
 
Evil Scientist
09:59 / 01.05.11
That was what I assumed it was Couch. Her lasts are his firsts and all that.

And the Doctor just committed genocide-by-proxy, and everybody's okay with that. Um. Yay?

He's done that before though.

I've enjoyed this season so far. I'm loving the constant reinforcement of Rory being Amy's true love (with constant little pricks that it might not be true, although it is, although it might not be).

With a show that tends to have "heroic" historical figures guest-starring it makes a nice change to have someone usually portrayed as a "blackhat" being a good guy for a change. Whoniverse Nixon shall return in Nixon vs Davros.

Bit annoyed by the lack of the Doctor's interest in the proto-TARDIS having now seen it twice. But I'm sure that'll be picked up on later in the season.

Regarding continuity errors. As we saw last season, supposed errors turn out to be good ways to spot time travel/missed time in Moffat's Who.

I think I know what the plan of the Silence is. But I'll keep my speculations to myself for the now.
 
 
Poke it with a stick
11:31 / 01.05.11
I'm noticing a few people here (and elsewhere) are complaining that the plot felt a bit rushed and that there were gaps along the way. Now, going on the past season, I'm inclined to think that this is a conscious attempt by Moffat to tell an entire story arc right from the get-go using every method at his disposal - including editing and omissions.

The Silence make you forget and this episode had huge gaps between the times where the group reunited - what happened in between? They can't remember so we, as outside viewers, don't get to find out.

Things are happening out of order - that's another Moffat trope - people thrown back into the past by Angels; the Doctor comforting Amy in The Time of Angels; River's romance stuck in rewind and now The Silence popping up where they shouldn't be or shouldn't have been.

Stylistically, while it doesn't entirely work as a stand-alone story, I think we'll find these episodes slot into the wider story like jigsaw pieces.

And the Doctor just committed genocide-by-proxy, and everybody's okay with that. Um. Yay?

Well, he didn't really - he told the Silence to "Run" - the only way humanity can hurt The Silence is if they hang around like the world's ugliest Blues Brothers tribute act in the background. If they get out now, they'll be fine. Except for the ones who met River, obviously.

And they're not down and out yet, are they? Amy, Rory, River and Canton weren't the audience for the (Future) Doctor's death, were they? It was the Silence standing on the clifftop that Amy forgot about.

Oh, and I can't believe no-one's mentioned Captain Shepard appearing along with Canton.
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
12:03 / 01.05.11
She remembers kissing him, but he doesn't remember kissing her, so that means she'll never kiss him again.

Agreed, I thought it was a fairly obvious "last kiss" moment.

I really don't have a problem with the pacing, I rather enjoy the break-neck speed. I am getting a bit tired of the Doctor/Rory/Amy "who loves who" shit, though.
 
 
■
17:12 / 01.05.11
I think the Doctor's lack of interest in the proto-Tardis is best explained by the scene where he specifically wonders what happened to the little girl and all the loose ends but then effectively goes: "Hell, no, I'm not doing my homework, I'm going down the park with my mates to ride our bikes. Fun!"
Classic displacement for something he doesn't want to deal with.
I'm also willing to bet that photo of Amy and the baby is a bait and switch, so that she's not its mum but its granny, with Amy as River's mother.
Another unanswered question: what exactly did the Silence want the spacesuit for?
However, I'm happy with the fast pace and plot holes, mainly because I remember the 16 looong years of having only New Adventures and DWM comics to keep us going, much of which were basically plot holes and conjecture spun out with lots of imagination.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
23:10 / 01.05.11
I liked it. It was like PKD, George M, Lovecraft and Ballard had written a song for Tool, and this was the video.
 
 
Poke it with a stick
17:41 / 02.05.11
Nice infographic to (hopefully) make things a bit clearer regarding the Doctor/River relationship timeline.
 
 
Kali, Queen of Kitteh
18:12 / 02.05.11
Criminy, do I love infographics.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
18:58 / 05.05.11
I thought that the look on Kingston's face after the kiss was supposed to portray bafflement. It wouldn't surprise me if I was wrong, though.

I seriously hope we're not heading straight for another reset button climax. The disappointment might make me melt into a puddle of grey gloop.

The only other way out that I can see right now is that the Doctor ends up somehow being the little girl, which would kill two birds with one stone: it'd provide a solution to the issue of his increasingly limited number of regenerations and would also allow Moffat to be the first script/series editor to have a female Doctor (which I can see him wanting to do).
 
 
Good Stuff
10:44 / 06.05.11
Embarassingly excited to have Doctor Who back with us and very pleased that Barbelith is still where good people want to go to discuss it!
Here's a few thoughts that have been bubbling inside me...

- Doctor's Death
I loved what Steven Moffat did immediately after the Doctor was killed. He had Canton turn up and banish any nonsense about clones/ duplicates/ etc (e.g. the kind of this you expect from a naff Star Trek episode - introducing 'false peril' that will be negated by some ill-considered sci-fi in the last five minutes).
Doing so, he immediately made it harder for himself to turn this thing around and resolve the story satisfactorily. (Though I trust him to do so brilliantly)

- Haunted House
I was tickled by the way Moffat introduced 'haunted house' to the show. He managed to put a weird, new, doctor-who spin on all the standard tropes:
delapidated mansion, weird caretaker, strange children hiding round corners, faces appearing and disappearing. I just know that there was/will be a clever DW explanation for all those odd things.

- Pregnant/Not = Remember/Don't
You forget the Silence once you look away. The Tardis both thinks that Amy IS and ISN'T pregnant.
So I wonder if the Silence's power is related to creating split timelines where you didn't see them.
If so I would expect Moffat to be foreshadowing the concept and I will be interested to see if there are more examples of 'superposition' of states in upcoming one-off adventures (the way the crack kept turning up, only a bit better please).

- The Good Man
Hmmm. I imagine Moffat is very pleased to have everyone guessing their little socks off. "Doctor?" "Rory?" "Are these too obvious?"
If it isn't one of them, who is it? Having it be a brand new character would be naff. I always like it when it is simultaneously unexpected AND inevitable.
So what about historical examples of "good men"/ "good men going to war"? Someone that most people will know, once they are told. Any mileage with this?

- Doctor's Change of Heart (End of Day of the Moon)
So I strongly noticed the odd way he changed his mind from investigating the little girl, to going off on another adventure (as I am sure viewers were supposed to). It made me feel quite uncomfortable (as I am sure viewers were supposed to).
The FIRST time I watched it, I assumed that somehow a hypnotic suggestion had been planted by the Silence to leave her/them alone.
The SECOND time however, I noticed that he makes the decision once he sees the scan of Amy. I wondered if he was trying to distract Amy/Rory from something or from thinking about it. But then they share a 'meaningful look' at his change of heart. Odd.
(While reading this through, I nearly decided to put "change of hearts" instead - I managed to stop myself though)

- Silence in the Library
I have not seen mention anywhere that the new threat in DW is the Silence and the first ever River Song episode was called "Silence in the Library".
Could there be a link/ suggestion/ narrative conceit between the current threat and River's last adventure? I am not even sure if I even like the idea of one.


Well, thanks so much. That feels better.
 
  

Page: (1)234

 
  
Add Your Reply