Who?

[Jon]

Who?

"Anyone else put in mind of the Numskulls whenever those tiny people appeared?"

Having just googled Numskulls Dr Who it appears I wasn't alone.

[Mumpo]

Who?

To cut Moffatt just a little slack, he did make it apparent in the script that it was a well-used idea deployed in an ironic fashion. Notwithstanding, it was a horrible mess of a story.

[Jon]

Who?

Oh no, derivative it may have been but it's never a bad idea to have tiny people living within and working a human body.

I did have trouble staying awake when I saw it so I need confirmation of this but - did Hitler ever come back after being locked in the cupboard? I don't remember him doing so. If he didn't return what a terrible waste of a possibly great character. You might as well have called the episode Let's lock Hitler in a cupboard.

[Purves Grundy]

Who?

You know what? Fuck this. I had thought that my reservoir of goodwill towards Doctor Who was inexhaustible. It was able to see me through 1987, after all. But I really don't think I can be bothered any more.

[Eggchaser]

Who?

I liked it, mainly. Title was a bit misleading, but who cares? Sometimes people overanalyse and expect a bit too much from what is essentially a family show that needs to resolve everything in one or two episodes. And this week's "Naughty things in the cupboard" was quite good as well.

[Crusoe]

Who?

Yeah, that last one wasn't too bad. It feels a bit like the inanimate-figures-that-look-humanish monster trope has been done to death a little, and the everyman-bloke-in-peril-but-comes-good theme too, but I was glad to avoid another tedious story arc expisode.

[David Agnew]

Who?

That's a shame, Purves.

I enjoyed it, certainly Mark Gatiss' best piece for Who, even if it did have the same ending as his last Who Script (and The Lodger). It was almost like Moffat had asked him to write an RTD-era Moffat story, and he almost pulled it off.

Other than that, what Crusoe said.

Next week's looks like another "odd" episode, which means either brilliance or crap, but it was written by Tom MacRae, who wrote the Cyberman two-parter in series two, so I've got fairly high hopes.

[jason voorhees]

Who?

Let's Kill Hitler - 2011
***

To be honest, Good Man Goes To War was a shark-jumping moment for me. To the point that I didn't care that the second half of the season started, and to the point that I probably could've gone to the beginning of next season had this thread not have been here.

I was very, very happy that this episode helped to straighten out many of my concerns. The title was out there, and at least there was a valid reason to it. For months you could only assume Matt Smith would throw up his hands and flop his wrists back with his fingers flickering, dandy-style, and flippantly declare "hey, let's kill Hitler !" So immediately, that concern was put to rest with a wonderful twist.

The Mel scenes were quite good, and at least showed that Moffatt spared some thought about the relationship of Rory and Amy to their daughter. That was probably my biggest concern, and it was addressed to minimal satisfaction but at least a smidgen of satisfaction was better than where my feelings were before.

I loved the intergalactic tribunal, and that was an outstanding new character. Much like the space-age twist that Moffatt had for The Empty Child, he's done quite well with WWII Sci-Fi. It was obviously incredibly risky to portray Hitler in a comedic sense anywhere on this side of The Producers, but it was done without too much stomach-churning queasiness. A Rory punch-out and lockup in the closet is good enough.

I loved Matt Smith's dying scenes, especially the extreme closeup as he's looking up at Young Pond. This episode and Night Terrors had some gorgeous cinematography. I loved the tuxedo and the physical slapstick as he was dying, and the bit of getting Amy to save her daughter. A lot of really good acting and direction.

The worst scene was certainly the Benny Hill lingerie scene. For a show that has such suspect treatment of women, that's not a scene that belongs anywhere near the show. On the same token, it is something that River Song would do. But it's a scene that is supposed to be played as comedy and make me incredibly depressed and sad for the humiliation these women were put through, so in that sense it was an incredible failure.

I'm feeling a lot better about River, about the Silence, and about Rory and Amy. I hate the fact that they will never be parents to their child, and that the Doctor essentially robbed River Song of her life, but it moved the show back to watchability.

[jason voorhees]

Who?

Night Terrors - 2011
***

I remember reading somewhere about casting movies about how you shouldn't cast someone who is really annoying in real life - but who doesn't know they are annoying, in a part where the character is supposed to be annoying. This is essentially exploitation, and is a cruel thing to do. However, when the producers cast this kid, they must've known they struck gold. You need a loopy weirdo who doesn't need to say much and look like he's not totally with it ? DING DING DING WE GOTTA WINNAH.

Again, I love the scientific base of having an alien cuckoo bird who floats through the universe looking for a family to raise them. Like Alien, it seemed totally out there and completely implausible that an alien would plant a seed inside a living being as it eats them from the inside and eventually pops out. Until you read about tarantula-killing wasps. Nature has so many crazy and out-there things that happen, and it's always neat when it makes its way into science fiction.

I was very happy to see Daniel Mays do a very similar character to the one he did in the Red Riding Trilogy. He was the glue that held the episode together, and while the slo-mo NOOOOOOOOOO-screaming plow-thru belongs in Adam Sandler golf movies, the connection he had with his son was real and came across beautifully.

Great cinematography, and a triumph of casting.

[jason voorhees]

Who?

And the way in which the focus returns to River is border line offensive too. Never mind Hitler, he's only personally responsible for a mere 10 million+ deaths, whereas River Song killed the Doctor. In fact when the captain of the robot thing said to forget Hitler, I assumed their new target would be the Doctor, given that he's wiped out at least two entire species. Which would have course made for a much more interesting moral question. We see the doctor as a hero, but how would he be seen by future generations, or other species...

Great points.

I'm going to give points for trying something interesting, even if it didn't pan out perfectly. It's obvious Moffatt is on the ropes, and is trying to bail himself out, and is working hard, so I'm going to look past the imperfections.

Great post about Nurse Rory, 10x7. I myself love Rory, and I don't see it the way that reviewer sees it, but I can understand the concerns.

[Purves Grundy]

Who?

Force of habit took over so I ended up watching again tonight, having fully intended not to. Quite glad I did. The was certainly the best story since Midnight, probably the best story since Doctor Who came back, and arguably the best story ever. Looked fantastic, big exciting whizz-bang fight scenes, amazing performances from all the regulars and a properly challenging philosophical dilemma at its core. Perfection.

[David Agnew]

Who?

I'm really glad you watched.

My thoughts -

It's The Mind Robber . No it isn't, it's The House That Jack Built (The second greatest Avengers episode ever). If they were Tom MacRae's influences (and every Doctor Who fan should watch The House That Jack Built), he did them justice. No it's not, it's exactly the type of story I wanted Moffat to write last week (if still a little paradoxy).

Now that's how you should do a "It's not trying to kill you, it's trying to help you". It's Doctor Who. It may be trying to help you, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be able to kill you at the same time.

What looks like an "Amy story" is actually a "Rory story", and Arthur Darvill's best (first?) acting performance to date.

And yes, easily the best since Midnight, which ironically enough was only done because Tom MacRae's last story (the premise of which - "The Doctor joins a live broadcast of paranormal reality show Most Haunted, investigating an old house purportedly haunted by the "Red Widow", while Donna watches at home." - sounds horrific) was deemed to similar in tone to the shit one with Agatha Christie and the wasp.

[jason voorhees]

Who?



The Girl Who Waited - 2011
****************************************

You got to love perfect premises. Much like Infernal Affairs, which had one of the most airtight and ingenious plot premises ever, this one had one which was so diabolical and heart-wrenching, yet as the Doctor said, completely compassionate. Like a 4-year-old on a computer or a brand-new VCR remote, it's not a good thing to go around pressing buttons without knowing what you're doing. I love how it was a Green Anchor and Red Stream as well.

It is interesting how it's become the Rory and Amy story, and I see that as a good thing. The Doctor has really, really fucked up their lives from the start. He left Amy as a young girl, has killed Rory a hundred times over, has their baby stolen from them, and yet what isn't killing them for good...

By focusing on them, the show has been able to show what the Doctor's consequences are a bit more. It's kind of the same attitude of Love & Monsters, only if Elton had lived with the Doctor for his entire life. By Smith being so young, it seems like he's making mistakes that older Doctors wouldn't make.

This was Amy Pond's story, and she was understated and sharp enough to deal with the tough role. I loved the 70s-style double-face close-up at the end.

Don't know what else to say, other than what Wyatt said about the nature of death, and what love is as well. However, I have to wonder if in the midst of running all over the universe, if Old Pond gets rescued by the Ice Pirates.

[Wyatt Earp]

Who?

That was excellent.

I said to the w and k's, as we were watching it, "I hope Purves changed his mind; this one's right up his street."

The philosophical conundrum was excellent: what constitutes a death? We're still left with the other conundrum: why are the best episodes now being written by people other than the Moff?

I wonder whether the problem really originated with RTD: that grand story arcs were always a bad and unsustainable idea, which no-one can carry off for long, and which inevitable tend to bathos. In which case they should just be abandoned.

[Wyatt Earp]

Who?

Oh: please could you make your pictures smaller, jv?

[jason voorhees]

Who?

(psst, how do I do dat ?)

[jason voorhees]

Who?

(I'll just take em out.)

[Wyatt Earp]

Who?

No, they're great!

[jason voorhees]

Who?

(It's all right, everyone saw them already.)

[Wyatt Earp]

Who?

If I was in Max Curmudgeon mode, I'd say that the "time compression" idea didn't quite cohere, for me: you never eat, your infection doesn't progress, but you age normally and are susceptible to poison in the normal way. Seemed a bit jerry-built. But that's my only quibble.

[VTTBoscombe]

Who?

So a series of two halves.
This second half is turning in better stuff than the first one; but there is still enough time for the Moff to blow it, I fear.

Shouldn't go on the trailers so much, as they are very misleading; but next week's Hotel Yorba episode looks too busy.

Gosh, Dr Who and the X factor trials , Saturday night just runneth over, with family horrors.

[Ginger Yellow]

Who?

That was definitely a return to form, but I don't think I'm quite as enamoured of it as some people here. Mainly because throughout there was a nagging feeling of "we've done this before". The separation and rapid ageing thing, for instance, was done in The Doctor's Wife (complete with message on the wall). And then there's the whole "hospital that imprisons/kills you" theme from the pirates episode. Ultimately I overcame that feeling because it ended up handling the premise better than expected, though I can't agree they handled the fight scenes all that well. They looked a bit silly and badly choreographed, rather than having Amy being a hardened bad-ass. And what was that leg armour about?

[ooh aah]

Who?

Only just watched Night Terrors and The Girl Who Waited. I liked both.

One thing that struck me was that Night Terrors was very much a rip off of Fear Her, but without the Doctor saving the Olympics crap. A child, who isn't really the child, people dissappearing, and being placed somewhere else (either Chloe's pictures in Fear Her, or in this case the Dolls house) bit this was done properly. The episode that Fear Her had the potential to be. Great stuff.

And The Girl Who Waited had a couple of things we've seen before - the different time streams reminiscent of the Girl In the Fireplace*, but different enough to be a different stories, and with a great moral dilemma, the sort of thing I was complaining about the lack of previously.

Agree with GY on the fight scenes. It's not as if they can't do this on Doctor Who, they had some great kung fu in the werewolf episode

*although my first thought was the way it ressembled the episode of Red Dwarf where Rimmer is stranded on a planet for 600 years, whilst for the rest of the crew it was a matter of days.

[jason voorhees]

Who?

I liked the fight, especially Rory's use of the Mona Lisa. Because that was goofy, and because it was a little uncoordinated, I think it was a lot more real to the characters. Amy, old and young, were true to themselves, gangly, wobbly, and effective enough. Also, these robots were not the assassin robot from the Five Doctors, they were essentially glorified nurses.


Amy had to only be good enough to beat these robots, and as long as they didn't sneak up on you, they weren't built to withstand an attack, uncoordinated or coordinated.

I didn't pick up on any of those episodes being done before, but it was most definitely a riff on what happened to Rory in the Doctor's Wife, when he waited his whole life in the Tardis for Amy. Obviously waiting is a huge theme with Moffatt.

[Ginger Yellow]

Who?

I liked the fight, especially Rory's use of the Mona Lisa.

Oh God, that was the worst bit, and I'd forgotten about it. Seriously? The robots die when a bit of canvas falls on their heads? Could he not have used a Picasso sculpture at least?

Also, these robots were not the assassin robot from the Five Doctors, they were essentially glorified nurses

Yes, but teleporting nurses that can knock you out with a touch and shoot killer drugs at you from their faces.