Heads up! Dr Who starts Saturday....

[woollypigs]

Lots of running in corridors, true Doc style. A bit boring at first, but a very nice end to it.

[woollypigs]

Oh this last in one got Peli to jump

(click to show/hide)

Is that it of Clara I was sure she would stay put until the crimbo special. edit: yes it is \o/

[TimO]

Whilst I quite enjoyed that episode overall, I did find . . .

(click to show/hide)

. . . the way that Clara died, a little odd.  I'd be willing to accept that she died because the Doctor wasn't around to help her, but him just shaking his head and saying "There's nothing I can do" flies in the face of the current style of Doctor, who can seemingly solve any problem.

I kind of like Ashildr, but feel that her character could have been done a little better.  There's something not quite right about the way she behaves, that's a little off-putting, although I can't quite put my finger on it.

[citoyen]

Not for the first time this series, I found myself wondering why they'd forgotten to include a story.

[woollypigs]

I think they have killed Me before they even got to use her, they have used her too much in too few episodes. She did well in the first two, but just used too much now. I really like the idea that there is another other one that keep on meeting the Doc, either helping, fighting against or just for a good old joke.   We need River, the Cap't or even "I'm the bloody Queen" back, once or twice a season, with some good humor about living a long time, can't die and how he (the Doc) made a fool of himself way back when etc etc. And Me could easily become one of that gang/gag.

(click to show/hide)

The way Clara died was rather meh. The way they build her up and introduced her was brilliant. There was a few episodes where you went who is that, what was all that about, which I enjoyed. But when she then became a full on sidekick, she didn't live up to the hype.

[mattc]

There was hype about a sidekick? I must have missed it (or ignored!). I've never expected much from the sidekicks - their role is basically like a more warmly-dressed* Bond Girl, with added plot-exposition-thru-stupid-questions. If they do more than that it's a bonus. There are plenty of mainstream sf/adventure TVshows/movies that use the same cliche (admittedly these are way past their heyday in number).

Some get dialogue where they get to show less respect to The Doctor. Or some jokes. But whether that works is mainly writer-dependent; it rarely makes a huge difference to the show as a whole.

I cant honestly remember any as being notably good. Happy to be reminded of any!

The characters like River and The Captain that you mention tend to be a lot more fun.

*with 1-or-2 big exceptions!

[Kim]

I'm a child of the 80s.  My Doctor's companion was Ace.  It's all going to be a disappointment after that.

[mattc]

TBF, I certainly remember Ace! A really nice idea,  but I just found the writing generally annoying (probably not just her character, the script in general). Perhaps it's just me; she seems to have a bit of a following. (it didnt help that I'd probably just graduated from the target age-range).

<googles ... > Oh heavens - she replaced Bonnie Langford. No wonder she was so popular!

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

I'm a child of the 80s.  My Doctor's companion was Ace.  It's all going to be a disappointment after that.

My dad's favourite was Leela.

[Mr Larrington]

I'm a child of the 80s.  My Doctor's companion was Ace.  It's all going to be a disappointment after that.

My dad's favourite was Leela.

Yebbut Louise Jameson went and spoiled it by becoming Bergerac's grilf

[hillbilly]

Only two more episodes to go, and the trailer for Next Week looked unlike anything I've seen British TV do for a while.  It had the feel of one of those Communist animations that were shown on BBC2 in my youth. 

Mark me down as "eagerly anticipating", not least because Capaldi has been acting his wee socks off and it looks like it will give him room to explore some interesting themes, like fear and paranoia (well, complicated for a piece of mainstream prime time entertainment).

I may be wrong, however, and the villain turns out to be the CandyMan

[Basil]

Just watched this for the first time in years.

What a pile of crap.  Drivel.  Waste of time.  Utter bollocks.

Ymmv

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

I thought tonight's was brilliant, really creepy and really clever.

[Kim]

Meh, it's a variation on the old solving NP-hard problems in O(1) time by destroying the universe if it didn't work trick.  Not exactly original, and took a lot of wanking to get to the point.

[citoyen]

Rambling and incoherent, the music was annoyingly intrusive, and then...

(click to show/hide)

...it turned out to be The Prestige but with a slightly more optimistic ending.

[Kim]

Rambling and incoherent, the music was annoyingly intrusive, and then...

(click to show/hide)

...it turned out to be The Prestige but with a slightly more optimistic ending.

(click to show/hide)

It's nowhere near as bad as The Prestige.  The Prestige would have made sense in the Doctor Who universe (where anything goes because sonic/aliens/technobabble/whatever), without need for that gear-crunching genre change before the big reveal.

[hillbilly]

I thought it was great. One of the best hour or so of original TV I've seen for a while.  Bold, for a Saturday evening show.

In even better news.  I took delivery of the Doctor Who Lego set that is officially launched on Tuesday.  I may have crossed a threshold in fan status, as its my first non-media who related thing.

[woollypigs]

In even better news.  I took delivery of the Doctor Who Lego set that is officially launched on Tuesday.  I may have crossed a threshold in fan status, as its my first non-media who related thing.

Very envious, you lucky sod

[BrianI]

A really good episode last night!

[citoyen]

(click to show/hide)

It's nowhere near as bad as The Prestige. 

Hey, I liked that film!

[Andrij]

Moffat writes to Peter Jackson 

[mattc]

Moffat write to Peter Jackson 

Thank you, thank you, thank you. That is hilarious.

(Does anyone know the story behind this? Is it a cry for help - i.e. better scripts - by Capaldi??  )

EDIT: while digging around, I found this rather good news about the Xmas Special:

(click to show/hide)

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2015-11-29/steven-moffat-why-im-bringing-river-song-back-to-doctor-who

[not sure I've ever visited that site before 

[citoyen]

Does anyone know the story behind this?

Consensus is that Peter Jackson has actually signed up to direct an episode - although it doesn't appear to have been officially confirmed yet.

[hillbilly]

He's a fan of the series, and IIRC Jackson directing a block was floated as a possibility a couple of years ago, but he passed because he was in the middle of directing The Hobbollox trilogy.  Now that the Hobbollox is in the can, and the Shitmarillion hasn't got off the ground, it may be back on the cards. 

Which would be jolly good, as Jackson is a great director (not just Lord of the Rings, but some of his earlier films were also very good.  Except Braindead - that was just mental).

[redshift]

Peter Jackson is a director who needs an editor who will say 'no'.