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Post by The Doctor on May 11, 2008 22:13:39 GMT
According to 'This Week in Doctor Who', the show is on next Saturday (17th) then skips a week for Eurovision and returns on the 31st.
-Ralph
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Post by The Doctor on May 12, 2008 7:52:18 GMT
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Post by Andy Turnbull on May 12, 2008 11:04:16 GMT
I thought The Doctor's Daughter was the poorest episode we've had of Nu-Who.
Andy
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Post by Bogatan on May 12, 2008 11:07:20 GMT
Not the best episode but I did like Jenny. I too was hoping for a real daughter, but the clone angle grew on me. Plus they have been banging on for three years how his family, all the timelords and daleks are dead, I liked that they didnt make a further mockery of it. At least not yet Im sure it will happen, but for this year bringing Rose back from someplace shes not meant to be able to meets the quota.
Most annoying thing for me was fish boy he jumped into a mud pool surely being a fish thats not the worst thing in the world? At the very least he had breathing apparatus.
Andy
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Post by Philip Ayres on May 12, 2008 21:47:27 GMT
From zetaminor.com's incoming page an alleged release schedule for the rest of the year:
16 Jun Invisible Enemy/K9 & Company
21 Jul Brain of Morbius
18 Aug Trial of a Timelord
15 Sep Four to Doomsday
13 Oct War Machines
17 Nov Battlefield
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Post by KnightBeat on May 12, 2008 22:05:49 GMT
What happened to War Games? I thought that was due for release in the near future.
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Post by Philip Ayres on May 12, 2008 22:07:00 GMT
No. Though rumours suggest next year in time for the 40th anniversary.
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Post by legios on May 13, 2008 6:14:43 GMT
No. Though rumours suggest next year in time for the 40th anniversary. I shall keep my fingers crossed for that. It would be fantastic to be able to replace my VHS version of that with a nice shiny DVD release. Good story, and it deserves to be out there. Karl |
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Post by The Doctor on May 13, 2008 8:58:49 GMT
Some work has been done on it. Steve Roberts on OG mentioned finding a clean print without the fungus on it (which causes the white spot problem The War Games suffers badly from). Apparently all the 'classic series' stories have been scheduled until the end. And you what that means. Yes, one day TIME AND THE RANI will be available in digital glory!
-Ralph
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Gav
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Post by Gav on May 13, 2008 9:19:04 GMT
I thought The Doctor's Daughter was the poorest episode we've had of Nu-Who. Andy They need to do a spinoff where the Doctor's daughter fights alien threats/deals with teenage problems - and call it NU-WHO! That would be fucking terrible! |
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Post by Philip Ayres on May 13, 2008 14:18:59 GMT
I've got both versions of the War Games (original and WHS exclusive edition) and the 2nd is a big step up from the first.
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Post by legios on May 13, 2008 19:53:40 GMT
A quick mini-review:-
So... "The Doctor's Daughter"... yes, pretty bad all told. In fact I'd have to say that this is my least favourite episode of new Doctor Who - beating "Father's Day" and "Last of the Time Lords" for the slot by a clear length.
The idea of cloned soldiers who don't know anything other than war is one that you could do something with, but unfortunately they didn't choose to do so. (Although perhaps we should be grateful to be spared Donna bringing "Cultchuh!" to them by singing Tiffany songs or something). Instead we got a random run-around through a bunch of coridoors - complete with an attempt at some sort of joke about how great running about is. Unfortunately it isn't. Running about in coridoors is what you do to fill the bits of the script that haven't got any other stuff in. Unfortunately this script was rather lacking on any "other stuff", leaving it all looking painfully anemic. Throw into the mix some stock new-Who moralising ("Soldiers are evil people", "I, the Doctor, would never use a weapon" (unless it is that great big incendiary bomb from last week obviously, thats alright obviously)) and the result is almost offensively dull.
The script didn't seem to entirely be able to maintain the logic of its own premises at times - they can produce new soldiers in seconds apparently, all togged up and mentally prepared for war. But the big surprise is that the war has actually only been going on for seven days (surprised by this, surely by the logic of the shows view of the Doctor he should have arrived on day six, so he could put his feet up on day seven.....), and the clone soldiers have run through hundreds of generations, allowing their origins to distort to myth. The problem is that nothing in the script supports the conflict being of the kind of intensity that would be required to achieve this. There seems to be literally no way to make any kind of sense out of the premise. (Also, given that the humans are implanted with military tactics, information and history why are they so uniformly rubbish? They are so poor as soldiers that they would lose to teenage Doom players, let alone to cadets. It doesn't help make it much more credible).
And really, the less said about the Doctor's "clone daughter " the better really. My sister dismissed her as "a Buffy knock-off", which does have a certain aptness to it. I surely can't be the only one to be totally unmoved by her death? Although the music was thumping me on the head telling me "THIS IS THE BIT WHERE YOU MUST BE SAD" as it is developing a bad habit of doing, I really couldn't think of anything that had given me an emotional connection to the character - and so her death meant nothing to me. Killing a character, and expecting me to react means that you have to give me a reason to care, something that the script simply failed to do.
And then they went and managed to fumble the already dropped ball. If you want a characters death to mean something, then you have to stand by it. The episodes last chance to enter a plea for clemency with me was to leave the body on the floor. But instead we get the absurd moment where she "gets better" and then races off in a spaceship to ...er.... come back when they are fishing around for an idea. Bringing her back via the stock Magic Space Fairy Dust wasn't clever, or surprising. It was instead one of the most cliched things they could have done with the props of the show. A more surprising and dramatic thing to do would have been for the Doctor to accept her, for her to die and stay dead. Instead they robbed her demise of any dramatic meaning.
Also, Freema was in the episode because......? The entire plot element with the Hath seemed to serve little purpose other than to say "Awwww, Cute ickle fish-aliens - they are just like fluffy puppies" or somesuch. The entire trip along the surface seemed to be there simply for the sake of it, and didn't really acheive anything at all in story terms.
I've been getting resigned to the idea that this season of Doctor Who is a step down from previous seasons but really. This wasn't so much a step down as a blind leap into a hole in the hope that it had a bottom.
Rant over, I shall now shamble off waving my grumpy-old-bloke stick in the air and muttering to myself.
Karl
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Post by The Doctor on May 13, 2008 21:08:33 GMT
Don't hold back. Tell us what you're really feeling.
-Ralph
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Post by legios on May 13, 2008 21:24:12 GMT
Ah, a good rant. There's nothing like it for giving you that "new broom" feeling. I can see why so many villians like their ranting.
Karl
(resisting urge to laugh the laugh that begins with "N")
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Post by charlesrocketboy on May 14, 2008 0:59:18 GMT
The "soldiers are evil! Grrr!" thing clashes really badly with the end of Human Nature...
Russell. Consistency. Where is it?
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on May 14, 2008 6:08:50 GMT
And then they went and managed to fumble the already dropped ball. If you want a characters death to mean something, then you have to stand by it. The episodes last chance to enter a plea for clemency with me was to leave the body on the floor. But instead we get the absurd moment where she "gets better" and then races off in a spaceship to ...er.... come back when they are fishing around for an idea. Bringing her back via the stock Magic Space Fairy Dust wasn't clever, or surprising. It was instead one of the most cliched things they could have done with the props of the show. A more surprising and dramatic thing to do would have been for the Doctor to accept her, for her to die and stay dead. Instead they robbed her demise of any dramatic meaning. I'm afraid I completely disagree with you on this point, Karl. Even though I didn't really care about her, when she took a bullet for the Doctor (as I expected her to do long in advance, based on story cliche rules), I was thinking, the only way they can even slightly redeem this episode in my eyes is if they _don't_ end on that cliched sacrifice that I've seen too often. It's futile killing a character you've only just introduced who people don't care about yet and make that the big ending of the episode. Bringing her back - after almost convincing us they wouldn't, by having the Doctor raise and then dismiss the possibility - turned it from a completely pointless episode that didn't mean a thing outside of its 50 minutes, into one that _may_ lead to something a little more meaningful further down the line. Martin |
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Post by grahamthomson on May 14, 2008 11:44:07 GMT
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Post by Andy Turnbull on May 14, 2008 11:58:47 GMT
Heavy-handed of course but it's to be expected. That being said the BBC could have quite easily gone after the people selling them without any real hassle. On a lighter note - noted Who author Lawrence Miles take on The Doctor's Daughter can be found at his blog beasthouse-lm2.blogspot.com/Andy |
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Post by charlesrocketboy on May 14, 2008 16:52:27 GMT
Damn it Miles, don't give me happy thoughts only for reality to dash them!  |
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Post by Fortmax2020 on May 14, 2008 18:20:52 GMT
I've just watched the latest episode. Very poor. I think I'd rather take a trip to Forbidden Planet Edinburgh!
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Post by The Doctor on May 14, 2008 19:26:32 GMT
I've been getting resigned to the idea that this season of Doctor Who is a step down from previous seasons but really. This wasn't so much a step down as a blind leap into a hole in the hope that it had a bottom. Karl Hmmm, if I was to mark the episodes out of 10 so far, I'd put them at: Partners in Crime: 6/10 The Fires of Pompeii: 9/10 Planet of the Ood: 7/10 The Sontaran Stratagem: 9/10 The Poison Sky: 9/10 The Doctor's Daughter: 3/10 So not bad overall. Yeah, the show has lost the 'shock of the new' and has settled into a steady formula...but much like any other period of DW on the telly. I do think the change in format next year will do the show the power of good though and freshen things up, despite what some fans on-line rant about. -Ralph |
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Post by legios on May 14, 2008 20:19:04 GMT
I'm afraid I completely disagree with you on this point, Karl. Even though I didn't really care about her, when she took a bullet for the Doctor (as I expected her to do long in advance, based on story cliche rules), Don't be afraid, dissent is a good thing :-) I'd much rather we had a bit of dissent - too much unanimity frightens me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I thought the death was anything other than painfully banal. It is just that I have this thing about death in the media - I don't like it when it is depicted as reversible. I'm very much a believer in the "dead is dead" school of thought. I feel that when a character is killed, but then brought back to life it cheapens the idea of death. For me, in narrative terms, death should be an absolute - anything else undermines its significance. I'm aware that this is a slightly knee-jerk reaction, but it is something that I feel quite strongly. Karl (And for the record I don't except the Doctor from this - on the grounds that each Doctor does indeed die. The person who gets up again may have the same memories but their personality and physical form are sufficiently different that they are completely different people. John Pertwee may be playing a character called "The Doctor" who has the memories of Patrick Troughton's character "Doctor Who" but I'm not sure that I'd consider them the same person.) |
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Post by The Doctor on May 14, 2008 22:06:36 GMT
I feel the urge for some Cuddly Colin greatness!
-Ralph
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Post by Philip Ayres on May 17, 2008 19:33:01 GMT
Wasn't that a lovely bit of fun tonight ?
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Hero
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Everything Rules
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Post by Hero on May 17, 2008 20:05:38 GMT
They showed Dr Who? I thought it was cancelled in favor of Europe having its song contest on UK TV  . ===KEN |
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Post by Philip Ayres on May 17, 2008 20:36:31 GMT
That's *next* week !
Tis repeated on BBC3 tomorrow.
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Post by karla on May 17, 2008 22:25:49 GMT
Wasn't that a lovely bit of fun tonight ? yes it was  , it was like a mix of cludeo and giant wasps |
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Post by The Doctor on May 18, 2008 16:00:19 GMT
I was out last night so caught it on the iplayer this afternoon. Solid enough. It was like Black Orchid but good.
Who is indeed not on next Saturday due to Eurovision. It's back the week after with an episode by Stephen Moffat, he whom wrote The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, The Girl in the Fireplace, Blink and Time Crash so I'm looking forward to that. The trailer alone freaked me out.
-Ralph
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Post by Philip Ayres on May 18, 2008 18:45:00 GMT
2 parter too !
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Post by Andy Turnbull on May 19, 2008 7:45:45 GMT
Enjoyable enough but Catherine Tate made me press the mute button a couple of times.
Andy
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. 
, it was like a mix of cludeo and giant wasps