A thread where I point out the Doctor Who Christmas thing was rubbish this year and you all point at me and call me a Who Rockist and say you enjoyed it.

Daft but not as stupid as this thread title.

The only way to kill spiders - flush them down the plughole.

Yeah it wasn't that good really.

Tennant's emo "I miss Rose" stuff wasn't convincing in the slightest, in fact it seemed to be only paying lip-service to the events of the last episode.

The best bits were the gags that acknowledged what formulaic cobblers it's becoming. "What, a secret base underneath a major London landmark?" etc.

I'm sure it's better than a lot of what passed for old-Who but Vague is missing the point that it's still nowhere near as good as the Ecclestone stuff, even when it was at its worst.

(What the naysayers want from Doctor Who = more alien planets, better baddies, fewer rub 'killing all the aliens in 30 seconds', certainly less 'oh you humans, you're great, you are!')

I'd agree that all those things would be good too, but the lack of them doesn't make the current series rubbish. Maybe the answer would be a wider range of scriptwriters, and never employ anybody who's seen Buffy.

It's quite possible that I'm defending it purely on the basis of a) Girl in the Fireplace, b) populist showboating and c) angering purists.

No surprise since the episode details had already leaked, plus allegedly the deal they had to do with the Nation estate to use them means they have to be in every series (can't remember where this comes from, possibly 1an L3v1n3 so caveat emptor).

Haha, my dad actually gave a little cheer.

"the mainstreaming/denerdification of DW" in action. Yay!

What I want better: scriptwriting (certainly less RTD, who doesn't know how to finish a plot which is why we end up with so many deux ex machina/maguffin endings that resolve the plot in 30 seconds) with much better dialogue (again, RTD is the main culprit), less self-referencing (when it happens it's invariably about the new series and invariably about episodes RTD wrote, so comes across as "look at me I'm bloody great" smugness), less celebrity guest stars (we had enough of that in the JNT years), less popular culture references (which are so dating and often make the writer look like a dad trying to be "down wiv da kidz"), less "ooooooh, humans, you're bloody great" (Alan Moore managed to do more eloquently in 2 pages of Watchmen what RTD has been lumbering around in 2 series now), less reliance on CGI centrepieces (the "best chase ever was k-rub last night) and LESS OF A LOVE STORY BETWEEN THE DOCTOR AND HIS COMPANIONS. I'd also like to see as many two-parters as possible, as I still don't believe the 45min plot works, and less reliance on cast-off New Adventures plots for stories (another at least 1 this coming series).

Bits of the old series as was were excruciatingly bad but it still managed a far higher hit rate than this. And it was waaaaaaaay more mainstreamly popular, as the viewing figures show.

Most of what you say is fair enough aldo, but I don't mind the sexual tension schtick that RTD's introduced, and I like it being all frothy and Pop as long as it's done well - which admittedly at least half the time at the moment it isn't. I don't know what New Adventures plots are - is it something to do with a comic version or something?

The weird thing about 45 minutes is that mostly on DW it doesn't work, but other programmes have comfortably fitted a satisfying story into that amount of time. I'm thinking of the first 2 Star Trek series (whatever flaws they both have, the writing is often tight) and any number of American cop shows. So is it just a case of not enough good Britishes writers, or what?

Well, there is that. Although according to the rumour mill that's not going to happen as Jul13 G4rdn3r has decided he is Doctor Who and nobody can do it without him, so when he pisses off after 5 series ("If it was good enough for Buffy, it's good enough for me.") that'll be the end of that.

I just get this feeling of megalomania off him, and when you look at the sheer number he's writing for the coming series it scares me. (I think only 4 are not by him.)

I thought the sexual tension worked quite well, but we even saw it last night with a woman whose fiancée has turned out to be working for the evil spidery thing. You know, it doesn't have to happen EVERY TIME.

New Adventures was a Virgin book series that ran with the McCoy Doctor after cancellation. Many of the current writers wrote them, and some of them weren't very good. Dan Perry is yer expert here.

I don't know why they can't make 45 minutes work (since, as you say, US shows seem to manage it) but I really think they need to address the fact that it doesn't. 'Classic' Who (as RTD expects us to refer to it) had very few (5?) 45 minute stories and they were pretty good, contrasting with the large number of 6/3 parters (depending on episode length) that could easily have had about 45 minutes cut and reliant on a lot of running around to pad them out. I think ideally one a series is enough.

I think that as viewers we're possibly looking on it from a different viewpoint to the Doctor.

We last saw Rose five-and-a-half months ago - it was the second Saturday in July when she was dumped on a "Norwegian" beach. To the Doctor, though, that all happened immediately before the start of the current episode - it's not too surprising that he hasn't had time to absorb everything that happened.

Mind you, that doesn't quite square with the way he mentioned the Canary Wharf battle, which also, to him, happened much more recently than to either us or Catherine Tate.

The best bits were the gags that acknowledged what formulaic cobblers it's becoming. "What, a secret base underneath a major London landmark?" etc.

See also that bit, and the becoming-a-running-gag about people being completely unable to remember alien invasions - "You don't remember that?" "I was in Spain" "They had Cybermen in Spain too!"

It doesn't always work, but one of the things I like about the nu-Who is its application of Modern Storytelling Technology to make zippy episodes. When they completely work (Rose, Girl in the Fireplace, Love and Monsters) they're fantastic, and even when they don't they're neccesary: if the first season had been two- and three-parters, we wouldn't have a second season to bitch about. And I much prefer having a Doctor Who which is a lively and important part of the culture to one that kept all the old values and is watched by four people.

Bits of the old series as was were excruciatingly bad but it still managed a far higher hit rate than this. And it was waaaaaaaay more mainstreamly popular, as the viewing figures show.

My initial reaction to this is that I'd love to hear of any programme getting the viewing figures today that a popular mid-70s programme got, though I am entirely without actual data.

the "you humans" bits and the wuv stuff are both ways of getting at a potentially interesting proper SF conceit, i.e. what is a vastly superior alien life form puttering around earth for, where exactly does his taking-of-human-pets bit fit morally. if they have been exhausted (which, um, maybe) then just getting rid of them is going to sort of beg the question.

i wanna hear more about what happened before the new series started, but i dunno how they'd do that. i am also probably the only person who'd welcome more episodes like 'boom town'.

Ecclescakes left to play an invisible man on a show even more wildly uneven than Who! I will point and laugh when he shows up on Heroes.

Also, Aldo did enjoy the Ecclestone series, if I remember right, so I don't think it's fair to have a go at him for being a mentalist-Who-rockist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8PGSr_dMdU

Ecclestone has a BEARD now = proof he is evil and wrong

I really enjoyed the Christmas special. I thought that Missus Raknos gave it a bit too much of the LOOK AT MY PUPPET COSTUME, but otherwise, it was great fun.

Disliked:
Robot Santas - ffs RTD think of something else to tie it into Christmas.
Pantomime Villain - All she did was shout and posture and overact and the make-up was rubbish.

My take on this version of the Doctor is that he's still traumatised by the Time War (which would appear to have been fought by the foppish McGann Doctor) - the Ecclescake version was the PTSD Doctor, visibly hurting and vulnerable; whereas emo-Doctor is the reaction, overly vengeful and fond of extreme (one might say final) solutions to his problems.

Is anyone else but me bothered about the fact that this cuddly new Doctor seems rather fond of genocide?

In the right hands, this could be awsome. What's the most number of beings/aliens/people/whatever that the Doctor has killed at once? And was it okay? If the answer to this week's episode is to destroy a solar system of 100 billion aliens, should he? And would the assistant stop him?

I must say I am quite surprised by some of the detractors on this thread. Sede's "too much loud music" speshly. Eh, grandad?

OMG EVIL DOCTOR! I WANT AT LEAST 4 EPISODES OF EVIL DOCTOR!

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2001320029-2006600210,00.html

I would replace him with someone older. How about Don Warrington.

And, yes, I did go "Oh fuck off" when the Dalek appeared in the teaser (actually I said "oh, come off it" because i was sitting with my parents, but I thought "oh fuck off" in my head, honest).

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Tennant left, but I'm not at liberty to say more.

I don't even want to think about Tennant leaving. Heartbroken's right. I'd be a jibbering mess.

(I am now wondering whether or not a Doctor Who Christmas special situated AT THE BIRTH OF JESUS would be brilliant or rubbish?)

Terrified owner says there's no room at the inn but the whole place looks suspiciously empty.

I can't see how that could be anything but an winner.

That said it was enjoyable.

Also, when are we going to get the Torchwood/Who cross over episodes.

(also, when is torchwood going to stop being so Emo and get to some alien bashing, ever since we had the 'it's not aliens it's just the welsh are psychopaths', it's all been about how awful humans are)

NEVER hopefully. Get Captain Jack out of there and back on the Tardis with a laser up his bum like the Good Lord intended.

(I've liked Torchwood, by and large, but I'm keeping it very disassociated from Doctor Who in my mind, which isn't very difficult, tbh)

(xpost!)

(xpost)

Come to think of it an evil Doctor would be brilliant. They could do a whole season over which the pretty female assistant du-jour realises the Doctor's actually getting more and more extreme. If I were a Dr Who writer I'd make damn sure those genocides he's committed would come back to haunt him. Then Torchwood could fix him (Yay! Make me a series producer right now!)

(I notice Rose's old place of employment seems to be rebuilt exactly as before, also the Gherkin seemed to be fixed and the scaffolding's finally off Big Ben - the rooftop scenes seemed to be avoiding Canary Wharf, but they must be rebuilding "London" or else future continuity will be a nightmare what with them destroying all major landmarks one by one)

xxpost

Dr "Oh, I see, very clever Human Resources"

Lance "This time, it's PERSONNEL!! Hahahha"
Lance and Empress "MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!"

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLLOLOLOLOLLOLOLOLOL!

Methinks RTD had forgotten to write a page or two of dialogue and had to hastily fill something in eh readers?

I dunno, we could have had another corridor.

An evil DOUBLE DOCTOR is what we want - after all it worked in Meglos! There wz an evil Doc taken over by FAXXION PARADOX in the Doctor 8 books and seeing as they thrive on temporal paradoxes I can imagine they can easily get round the destruction of Gallifrey Mean Time.

Also they could gay up and have babies.

Ah.

I mean, what I was... oh.

Really? But I love him.

Sarah, are you talking about a separate person/time lord, or some kind of evil mirror Rotcod? Either way I'm not sure gaying up for babymaking would be a great approach. Although it would be fun to listen to parents across the land trying to explain it to their kids. "The Doctor's tired, and the other one is carrying him."

I think Captain Jack just got back on the Tardis.

i mean, they're bringing back the daleks, so i'm pretty stoked.

will no-one share my dalek love

I thought the last two episodes of Torchwood were rubbish, apart from the bit where Gwen was inputting the retinal scans into the computer to open up the time rift again, and a big warning message flashed up on the screen saying This Might Cause Structural Damage, either press "Okay" or "Cancel". I laughed out loud at that bit.

I also watched the Sarah Jane Smith spin-off, about the fizzy pop laced with alien molecules and the boy with no belly button. It was okay.

In an ideal world the TARDIS that picked him up would be from wayyyy in the future, so they wouldn't be able to show the doctor, and we'd never get an explanation of what happened to him, he'd just pop back and go 'ah well back to work'. Somehow I have a feeling that that's not going to happen, though. :( The cgi in that final episode was pretty poor, too, I wish they hadn't used it but just suggested at everything with shadows and people screaming and that, I'm sure it would have been scarier.

Four.

Series 1-4 and 9-12

Oh, and did you know about this?

Although the BBC is planning a spin-off to Life on Mars - called Ashes to Ashes, set in the 1980s and starring [Philip] Glenister, Simm is bowing out. 'My instinct tells me not to hang around too long.'

xpost - DO NOT JOKE. Fucking Stephen Merchant turned up in 24 the other week!

There's a rumour John Simm might replace David Tennant? Hmm, I'm not sure about that at all. I shall have to consult my hormones.

xpost

I guess the same goes for Don Warrington.

(I stopped noticing the "OMG, white dogshit!" stuff about two episodes in - it was still there, but generally subtle, apart from "hilarious" discussion about Virgin mobiles)

She was in it for all of 5 minutes, not sure why people are still so het up about this.

Yes, I believe he was. Too young to remember it myself.

I'd quite like Aiden Gillen as the next Doctor, assuming we're going for RTD faves, which tends to be the way of his things. Or Lesley Sharp, but that'll never happen. She'd make a good assistant though.

perhaps the concept encourages it - regeneration and fairly regular companion changing such handy get outs, but still.

I have not read anything else on this thread since this post. If there is a spoiler to Life on Mars on here anywhere, someone better tell me so I can stop reading this thread, like I had to stop reading the Lost thread.

Please tell me there isn't.

It's 1973, it's almost dinnertime, I'm 'avin' 'oops. (Life on Mars Series 2)