Doctor Who and Torchwood

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This whole half season aside from the Xmas episode has been a giant waste of time. And of course, Vastra and Co. have nothing to contribute to the Clara mystery.

Best part of the episode was the double reference to Tegan Jovanka:

"I once spent a hell of a long time trying to get a gobby Australian back to Heathrow airport."

"Brave heart, Clara."
 
Hmm, I'd have to disagree. I've really enjoyed the most of the one-off episodes in this half of the season. I felt "The Snowmen" and "Bells of St. John" were two of the best Moffat eps in a long time. I also really enjoyed "Cold War" and "The Crimson Horror," though I was really disappointed with "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS," due to its poor plot and ending.

I just saw "Nightmare in Silver" and I think it was the best ep of this half of the series yet. Loved the whole chess theme running throughout as well as Matt Smith's performance and I felt it was the best Cyberman episode since New Who started.
 
Watched Pyramids of Mars a few days ago. I guess this is part of the template that episodes like Hide or The Crimson Horror are based off of, where the Doctor and his companion are running around in the same building as the villain, causing mischief. When people say the cheap production values add a bit of charm, I think that definitely counts for the "Mummies" Sutekh had running around. They're slowly waddling around in the forest and have a ridiculous chest lump, but even basic stuff like chasing people through the forest felt tense. In fact, I think that's another part of how limited production values can enforce good plot discipline: they only have enough money to film outside a mansion, so everything has to stay geographically centered. With CGI now you can have the hero rocketing around to 4 different planets, but with that ability is the risk of having it all just be an empty slideshow.

I've only seen City of Death alongside this, so I'm still not too familiar with Tom Baker, but he does seem to play well between goofy irreverence and being slightly a prick. It's a shame Sarah Jane was a journalist in 1980 and not 1990, because maybe she wouldn't be stuck wearing a dress!
 
Glad you enjoyed those two, they are up near the top of Classic Who.

If you want to check out more standout Tom Baker stuff I'd recommend (chronologically):

The Ark In Space (DW's version of Alien)
Genesis Of The Daleks (arguably the best Dalek story)
The Deadly Assassin (first real depiction of Gallifrey and the Time Lords)
The Robots Of Death
The Talons of Weng-Chiang
The Sun Makers
Destiny Of The Daleks

There's also a full-season arc called The Key To Time, which consists of 6 stories. They're all worth watching.

The final Baker season has some great stuff, but for mythology purposes I'd save those until you're more familiar with the previous material.
 
This giant season 5-7 "arc" I think was clearly being fiddled with as we went along, which is actually kind of fascinating, basically witnessing drafts in real time. Moffat liked the phrase "silence will fall" in season 5 so he tied that into the premise without a clear notion yet of what it meant. Then in season 6 he came up with new monsters and named them the Silence, and turned that into an order preventing the question Doctor Who? from being asked at Trenzalore.

And now in season 7 that idea about "what's the name of the Doctor" morphed today into "what's the nature of the Doctor", identified by the presence of its absence: John Hurt.

that's actually not a bad ending point to segue us into the 50th Anniversary special. I think it's a fool's game to try and retcon everything previous together, although it does really demonstrate how flimsy a lot of connecting tissue was in season 6.

"objectively", whatever that means, this episode itself was fairly well done (and beautifully shot), with some excess fluff from getting too obsessed with The Impossible Girl and The Doctor's Name. But whatever. I loved loved that credit, implying John Hurt may be wandering around this show for a while.
 
There's only been one version of The Doctor who was never named The Doctor, which was the Valeyard a future version of himself who tried to get the 6th Doctor executed in one season, I guess this is what will be explored further in why did that Doctor did what he did as the ending seems to imply there were good reasons...though he could also be the Doctor who finished the Time War as some have speculated
 
Is he called Doctor Whom?

OK, so I've watched the 2nd half of season 7 as well as The Snowman and Angles Take Manhattan. I'm still not getting it. Just imho, I think Matt's acting was better in this last episode than it has been, and I do think he's a great actor, I just don't like it when he overacts, and what's more I can't understand others who praise him for his sometimes hammy performance. I'll watch the 50th and the Christmas episode, if I'm still here, but if I still don't like or understand it then I'm giving up.

I wouldn't mind watching some of the classic series though
 
BBC saying Matt Smith is leaving at the end of the year; after the Christmas special. So he'll be here for the 50th and I assume have Christmas be his final bow.
 
new Doctor: Peter Capaldi

doctor-who-peter-capaldi.jpg
 
if you had to pick a white dude, I think Peter Capaldi seems like a great choice.

that "if", however, is doing a lot of work.
 
As a fan of The Thick of It and In the Loop, fans of Doctor Who are in for a treat.

Malcolm Tucker is one of the great TV characters.
 
lazarus said:
They didn't have to pick a white dude. Just a great actor.
Click to expand...

I suppose no one held the BBC or Moffat hostage when they made the decision, no, but 14 for 14 (Cushing and Hurt) speaks to a pretty clear informal template of picking great actors.....who are white. In this role of all roles, they need to bother to make it a little more explicit why the casting is so narrow considering the theoretical ability to cast anyone on the planet.
 
Considering 9 of those you mentioned were from a period where there was no way in hell that was even a possibility, I think you're exaggerating.

I guess having the first black companion and and a black boyfriend of a white companion and the elastic sexuality of Captain Jack isn't enough progress for you.

Maybe talk shit about the Bond producers instead. They've been casting since 1962 and all they've given us is a female "M".
 
....I just want to put the clearest distillation of my thoughts out there; which is that casting "against" previous actors in the role (to some degree), is considered wholly ordinary and uncontroversial in terms of age and physical presence. Everyone's curious about how Capaldi will channel that difference from Smith/Tennant and fine! Great. But there's also a small segment of the fans that really freaks when race or gender is brought up, because it's uncomfortable defending the inertia of "white male = default". Which is not a trap you have to be be a scheming eeeevil KKK member to fall into, and is I think closer to the nature of how Moffat occasionally falls short on these kinds of issues.

So that grinds my gears.

Anyway, that's not designed as a backhand commentary on you, laz, or anyone in this thread, but against kind of a strawman compendium of internet comments that annoyed me. I certainly think reasonable people can disagree on how to value something different against perfectly nailing a more familiar type.
 
Well according to Neil Gaiman the role has been offered to a black actor before (he specified not for the new Doctor though), but he turned it down.
 
The first trailer for The Day of the Doctor is here!

The Day of the Doctor: The Second TV Trailer - Doctor Who 50th Anniversary - BBC One - YouTube

I'm very happy to see Ten back. I can tell the playful bickering between Ten and Eleven is going to be awesome. I love that "I don't like it" line about redecorating. Nice throwback to the classic series. Plus, the trailer offered enough of the plot to make me more excited but not enough to give anything away.
 
Yeah, that part of the trailer was really exciting. I did see a promo photo that had Hurt, Smith and Tennant posing side-by-side in the TARDIS and it felt painfully clear that Eccleston would have been an amazing get to complete the set. But I guess I can't complain too much about John Hurt.
 
continuity porn!

if he was willing to come back, it seems it'd be simpler just for McGann to be the bad Doctor instead of John Hurt. although maybe they wanted the flashier guest.
 
The BBC certainly wanted the flashier guest.

McGann is a good actor, but I really DGAF about the 8th Doctor. Proper respect should have been paid to the other surviving Doctors by either casting them in other parts so they could at least appear recognizably on screen, or allowing them to don their old costumes and play the role itself. As far as continuity goes, the writers have never had a problem with ridiculous explanations for bending/breaking rules of logic, canon, etc. so not sure why this would be a stumbling block.

I'll reserve final judgement until the special airs because part of me is still hoping that Moffat did some great stuff in top secret fashion as a surprise.
 
Something is better than nothing, I guess.


Tom Baker's appearance is an instant all-time classic. Like, goosebump-inducing in how haunting, charming, and poignant it was. And it's nice that they let him be the one to set the next big plot arc into motion.
 
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