Doctor Who and Torchwood

[Joey788]

I agree with everything said above.

Spoiler

It had a wonderful concept at the heart of it, but it got wrapped too much other plotlines and random setpieces, like that entire alternate universe. There were plot holes that you could drive airliners through. I really hope things get far simpler next season.

And I agree that the scene about the Brigadier was the best moment in the episode. Amy's scene where she killed Kovarian was pretty awesome as well.

 

[mobvok]

Rewatching now, lest I be seen too negative let me just say the Stetson and New Jacket combination on the Doctor is Hella Sharp, and dead sexy

 

[mobvok]

"Doctor, I have a terrible headache. ....which means more than it used to."

Area 52 in a pyramid, despite being ostensibly more WACKY, is far less expensive a set than Area 51 was during the premiere when no one could get within 15 yards of the Doctor in the huge hangar. Even Kovarian was set up in the middle of a random tiny room. Did you notice the sign in front of her? Cheap, cheap, cheap.

Based on the guns visible, the US troops should easily should have gunned down the Silence like Amy did, prior to Amy actually gunning them down.

"Rory Williams, the man who dies and dies again, die one last time and know she will never come back for you."

The Doctor says River "embarrasses" him with her dumb timey-wimey plan.

"..Um we had a kid and got married and that's her."

"OK I need a strip of cloth about a foot long, anything will do. .....never mind, River, take this."

"I'm his........mother in law....." *LUCILLE DRUNK FACE*

WHY DOES PRISON WAIT FOR RIVER IF SHE NEVER ACTUALLY KILLED ANYONE

on re-watch the episode is slightly less offensive than it was before, but I'm still dissatisfied with the execution of the season's plan

all that said; I'm still a sucker: I can't wait for the Christmas episode. It's like Community; they've gone through the facepalm storyline and it's a new season!

 

[lazarus]

Amazon.com: Doctor Who: The David Tennant Years: David Tennant: Movies & TV


That is a steal. 26 discs?? A shitload of extras, too.

 

[deep]

when this thread gets bumped
I take a look, I keep thinking there will be a Torchwood post.

I watched 3 or 4 episodes of TW this season, then I fell behind. It was fairly decent. I keep thinking I will go back and pick up the rest on my OnDemand service, I hope/think they are still there. So I look in here to see if anyone says anymore about this season. There were a few posts in the beginning.

As for Dr. Who. I watched a few episodes this season, they were sub-par, and reading many of the posts in here, it seemed many long term fans drew the same conclusion. So, I quit it.
I don't think I am missing anything at all.

So if anyone is still watching Torchwood, did this season continue on in a decent fashion? or did it turn to crap, like Dr. Who?

 

[lazarus]

TW was okay. I actually liked a good number of episodes of the original show, and the BBC miniseries was great too.

This had its moments but was a far, far cry from what it was before at its best.

Probably not worth the time.

 

[Joey788]

Children in Need Special is up, along with a preview of the Christmas episode.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxIPj2b7h0E

 

[mobvok]

three more days until the Most! Wonderful Time, of the Year

Doctor Who Christmas Special Doctor Who Christmas Special Doctor Who Christmas Special Doctor Who Christmas Special

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, man....

 

[mobvok]

For Christmas, Ralphie and Fiona Apple learn an important lesson about the significance of cap and trade environmental protection programs.

Not really the sharpest showing (good amount of time wasted on/with the tripod), but the Amy and Doctor reunion still got me.

 

[deep]

I may give the new season a look see


'Doctor Who': The Doctor's new companion revealed - CNN.com

 

[mobvok]

Boobs! Also, her red carpet smile seems a little forced.

Le GENERAL SPOILERS for the episode sequence of how this will go down

Spoiler

The seventh series of the BBC's revived Doctor Who will kick off with six episodes including the Christmas special airing this autumn, with a further eight episodes to follow in early 2013.

"Amy and Rory will leave in the fifth [episode] that goes out," said Moffat. "It will be a final encounter with the angels and not everybody gets out alive – and I mean it this time."

 

[lazarus]

I wouldn't mind opening her Pandorica, if you get my meaning.

 

[mobvok]

I wouldn't mind opening her Pandorica, if you get my meaning.

DAMN IT

I sat there for like 10 minutes trying to think of one and ultimately gave up and wrote boobs.

 

[deep]

only focusing on the boobs

is the reason you lasted 10 minutes

 

[lazarus]

I had to pull up the list of 11th Doctor episodes to come up with that.

 

[mobvok]

The Season 7 premiere is scheduled to be screened on August 14th at the BFI, so I would guess a mid/late August date for the official kickoff. Following the 5 eps/Christmas/8 eps sequence, though, seems like we'd be done by October, which feels a little weird.

 

[Joey788]

Well, we got our first full-length trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qrEUBl2pacU

Spoiler

DALEK ARENA

DINOSAURS

REFERENCES TO THE MASTER

IMPRISONED WEEPING ANGELS

I wasn't really too excited before I saw this. But after viewing the trailer, Asylum of the Daleks can't arrive fast enough.

 

[lazarus]

I'm so, so sick of the Daleks. Out or all the stories featuring them in New Who, the only one I think is truly great is the first, Dalek.

Moffat needs to stop with the Angels, too. He should be creative enough to come up with something else.

 

[Joey788]

Oh, I was just as sick of them after RTD's overkill. But the last Dalek-centric episode we had was at the beginning of Series 5 in 2010. Plus, this episode is said to bring back some of the classic-era Daleks, including the Special Weapons Dalek. That should keep things a little fresh this time around.

As for the Weeping Angels, I'm a little more cautious. But they were still effective and scary to me in their last episodes, so I'm willing to see where this goes. All in all, it has me more excited than Series 6 did.

 

[lazarus]

Well, I'm a big fan of Moffat's intricate mythology. This season is supposedly back to "monster of the week" style, so I'm a little pessimistic.

 

[mobvok]

September 1st

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNHEEZ_I74U

Daleks, Angels, and Dinosaurs.

 

[mobvok]

Oh wow, I can't believe the same person wrote last season's finale and today's premiere. Or that Moffat managed to hide....that....until the episode aired. A good crackling episode making excellent use of dark hallways in various configurations.

The one thing I disliked:

Spoiler

hitting the reset button on Rory and Amy's divorce.

What I liked: the idea of burying companions (or maybe Doctors?) in earlier episodes. Avoids their first main episode being too much boring background info. You do this a season in advance and do it like Donna where it works either way storywise to hire the actor in another year or not.

And nobody saw Oswin's face. Don't know how important that may be.

We only saw the snow planet scenes because, when filming episode three in Almeria, the team realised how close they were to the Sierra Nevada snow resort and extended the foreign shoot.

That was a good idea. The episode would have lost something had they teleported directly into the Asylum.

 

[Joey788]

That really was an amazing, amazing episode. I was very excited for this episode and worried that Moffat would screw it up, but it turned out wonderfully.

Spoiler

It didn't even bother me that the classic Daleks had a small role. The whole story, including the surprise with Oswin, was brilliantly written. I also liked the bit with Oswin erasing the Doctor from the Daleks' collective memory. It actually created a reason for someone to say "Doctor Who?" without me groaning.

 

[mobvok]

Spoiler

Oh, definitely. I thought that was so unbelievably corny last season but I've come around.

Curious about the human-drone we saw at the start. I decided never to watch the Season 3 Dalek two parter, so I'm curious about how a Dalek might handle essentially marinating in human memories. On the one hand we'd have Oswin being a human trying to handle being a Dalek, while whomever is a Dalek trying to handle humanity.

 

[mobvok]

So we're three episodes in now and while I'm not sure we've had a single standout episode, overall they've been of pretty good quality. This was a surprisingly more contemplative episode, but it's the sort of thing you can pull off with moody expansive shots from a California Spanish ghost town as opposed to a Welsh quarry.

At this point last season we had the Turd Vessel episode, so I'm pretty positive about the season as a whole, which is 180* from the pessimism I had going in.

Next week's preview looks fantastic.

 

[lazarus]

This week's was kind of MEH for me. Last week had lower lows but much higher peaks.

Optimistic about next week though, as it looks a little more mythology-based.

 

[Kieran McConville]

The latter cheep-n-cheerful couple of years of the Russell T Davies era lost me seriously, seriously, seriously. I was sort of giving the new Doctor a chance until that godawful Churchill episode where London looked cheaper than it did in the one about the child with the gasmask face, four years earlier. Then the one where they brought the angels back but these futuristic British monks pretty much looked and acted like early 21st century military personnel. Jaysus.

Then again, "Human Nature" represents the height of what I hoped for from new-era Doctor Who, so I may be biased in my... expectations.

 

[lazarus]

The "one about the child in the gas mask" was one of the best stories in the show's entire history.

Not sure why you'd be judging DW on its production design, which is never what made it so great.

 

[mobvok]

I don't like Star Wars. The computer screens are too 70s, and it pulls me right out. Where are the retina displays?!!?!?!

You seem to dislike a lot of the more recent Who stuff, which is fine and whatever people tastes opinions blah, but you're framing it in the weirdest terms. Not that the scripts are bad, or the acting is hammy! But the military guys are too...21st century?

 

[Kieran McConville]

I don't like Star Wars. The computer screens are too 70s, and it pulls me right out. Where are the retina displays?!!?!?!

You seem to dislike a lot of the more recent Who stuff, which is fine and whatever people tastes opinions blah, but you're framing it in the weirdest terms. Not that the scripts are bad, or the acting is hammy! But the military guys are too...21st century?

Granted it was a minor point but I framed it that way because the characters, in the story in question, are from well in the future. Now the future is unknowable, but it won't look or sound too much like (insert year of production here). In a weird kind of way I'd probably buy it more if they looked like monks. Just some token to place it outside the here-and-now.

My framing might seem weird but aesthetics are part of things too. You mentioned Star Wars. Alien, a film nearly as old as Star Wars (while somewhat dated in its own way) still just works. Their screens probably look a bit seventies too, but oddly I can't remember what they look like. That is my last word on that.

Actually some of the scripts have been atrocious, but I'm reserving that slam for the last year or two that RTD was in charge, and which I am most familiar with of the revived show. Waaaay too besotten with contemporary British pop culture as the be-all and end-all of human endeavour. Really, while something about it just threw me right out of the story four or five episodes into his first season, I can't and won't say that the Matt Smith era is awful or anything. Not familiar enough.

The first few years, Ecclestone, and the first two seasons with Tennant let's say, while far from flawless, I was pretty on board with a lot of that stuff.


"The kid with the gas mask" aka the Lost Child if I'm not mistaken. I agree, it was fantastic. Wasn't implying any different. Great story, absolutely chilling scenario, and, just incidentally wartime London looked about 100 times more believable than in a dalek story filmed four or five years later (bear in mind this isn't a low budget show anymore, and I'm not prepared to cut too much slack the way I might have done for ye olden days).