Who?

[Levin]

And the silence. Who were much more effective second time round. The weeping angels don't work though on subsequent appearances. I've been watching Tennant and Smith episodes, I much prefer Smith and I do like River Song, I think it helps to watch all her episodes together to keep in mind what the story is. I'm watching Human Nature / Family of Blood and it really is very good, even if the music is terrible and jarring and constant.

New Who does modern day / near past so much better than the future or pre-modern past. I think in part its because the worlds of the future feel so generic or just barely sketched out.

[Patrick Thistle]

I got a bit lost with the Silence. I didn't know they came back because I stopped watching Peter Capaldi Doctor.

Blink is still the best episode of the post 2005 Who oeuvre (Whoeuvre?) but subsequent Weeping Angels stories dropped off in quality. The New York one was shite.

[Femme Folle]

I like the River Song episodes, but I love the Missy ones. Clara gets on my nerves, so I was glad when she was gone.

[Various Artist]

I got a bit lost with the Silence. I didn't know they came back because I stopped watching Peter Capaldi Doctor.

I didn't stop watching, but I'd clean forgotten that too.

Ooh, hang on, maybe they just made me forget... Spooky!


The modern Whoeuvre is like that, though, by and large: so many stories are fairly objectively superior to much of the 'classic' era, but it all seems to slide off the surface of my consciousness without making a dent most of the time. I think the lack of episodic adventures spread over four weeks or thereabouts, as was typical in the 1963-89 series, means things don't have the chance to make an impression. Plus I'm older and more jaded, of course, but as time goes on it becomes harder and harder in general for stories to stand out as especially unusual or memorable. 'Blink' did, for all kinds of reasons; I'm still amazed that it managed to air back-to-back with 'Human Nature'/'The Family of Blood', which has to be one of the highest sustained peaks Doctor Who has hit in any era.

Agreed that the Weeping Angels have never recaptured their initial impact in 'Blink', and naturally this ties into what makes it hard to create a great recurring villain: it's bloody hard to keep up a level of menace once an enemy (a.) increasingly loses mystery through repeated exposure and (b.) gets defeated multiple times. For whatever reason, however, the Daleks, Cybermen and Master seem to get constant repeat bookings despite suffering this more than any others and experiencing the most frequently diminishing returns.

There's a joke about certain football managers to be made there.

(Though to be fair the Angels kind of 'won' in 'The Angels Take Manhattan' – but that ending hacked me off more than just about any other I have to say. Timey-wimey stuff says New York gets 'time-locked' or whatever, so the Doctor can't take the TARDIS back there to rescue Amy and Rory... ergo they get trapped in the past forever. So, what, he couldn't just land it in the appropriate era in, say, New Jersey, or indeed Ohio or Los Angeles or London, and take a plane, train or automobile and find them and fetch them back that way? The arbitrary finality of their fate, despite the obvious alternative resolutions to it, just bugged the hell out of me for some reason.)


Anyway, yes, I could take seeing more Zygons. My own personal favourites to bring back will always be the Ice Warriors, as I feel they've always been underused all things considered. Not least, they underwent some character development in the '70s when they reappeared in the Third Doctor's 'The Curse of Peladon' as a non-antagonistic race, with their society and code of honour explored a little more. Though I acknowledge this does lead us back into Klingons territory...

[elguapo4]

Matt Smith was a good Doctor, but I found Amy and Rory annoying in the extreme, a lot of their plots I just didn't care about, when Rory turned up dressed as a Roman legionnaire all I could think of was Rodney Trotter in the last Only Fools episode. As for River Song, somebody shoot her please!

[Patrick Thistle]

The whole RIver Song being Amy and Rory's TARDIS daughter was icky as well given how she ended up being the Doctor's one true love. Although it would be interesting if the current doctor met her.

[Levin]

But she's not the Doctor's one true love. Or at least the Doctor isn't in love with her. He's just interested in someone who is somewhat like him. I've watched a selection of Smith and Tennant episodes over the past few days and it's a bit cringy how all the women fall in love with him (except Donna so far). Rose, Sarah-Jane, Martha, Amy & River. Have I missed anyone?

Also, the earlier series are much more willing to show actual britain, like streets with cars parked up both sides, shopping centres, schools. I guess it's budget but also those external shots don't really show up now even when scenes are taking place in quotidian locations.

[Ginger Yellow]

I thought the conclusion to the new two-parter was a bit naff - at least it wasn't a reset button, but it was almost Bill & Ted levels of "remember to have done this in the future". I was also very glad it didn't turn out to be another Cybermen reveal.

[jason voorhees]

**********************HELLO AYBODY SPOILERS************************

*******************SORRY INTERNET CAN BE A BIT DODGY IN .PY **************


When Massy said "Have you seen Gallifrey? It's all burned...." I was so excited because I thought it was the version of the Master before the old guy at the end of time, and this was going to be how he got his mind erased and turned into the old guy. Like he hadn't seen the Time War yet. I mean it still can be, but in that moment I was quite the excited.

I thought the whole thing was quite good. I didn't mind the Blink stuff, especially with the signs on the bottom of the plane walls. The mind erasures were quite moving at the end. I felt guilty for loving the laser tap-dancing shoes, but, yes, I loved the laser tap-dancing shoes.

***********SPOLER OVER***********************************

***************IN NJ FOR 2 MO WEEKS SPOILER OVER*****************

[Patrick Thistle]

The mindwipe thing is new though, right? I'd not seen that before.

[Patrick Thistle]

Thought episode 2 dragged a bit tbh. They could have dispensed with the Paris bit. Probably the weakest section.

[jason voorhees]

Re: Mindwipe
Tennant did it to Donna.

[jason voorhees]

Re: Mindwipe
Capaldi almost did it to Bill at the end of "The Pilot," but she refused and he allowed her to join him.

[Gangster Octopus]

Wasn't Ada Lovelace long dead by the time the Eiffel Tower was built?

[ursus arctos]

For more than forty years

[Merlin the happy pig]

Well hopefully it'll be better next week.....

I'd enjoyed the first two episodes of this series, but that was dire.

[elguapo4]

Yeah, tonight's wasn't great.

[Patrick Thistle]

It had potential but we've seen the "idyllic spa is cover for monsters" so many times before. And the last few minutes were preachy as fuck.

There's always one episode in a series that really feels like a kids' show. Hopefully that was it. I can imagine a nine year old having their mind blown at the revelation in the tunnel.

[Patrick Thistle]

Episode 3 last season was Rosa Parks and I never finished watching it because of the full body cringe. So maybe it's a third episode thing.

[Levin]

God, Gatiss is a tiresome screenwriter. And far too keen to show his homework.

[elguapo4]

Enjoyed tonight's episode, some neat twists. Hopefully they take it in a good direction.

[Patrick Thistle]

Just caught up on episodes 4 and 5.

Episode 4 was ok. Stupid star trek style human in a rubber mask alien though. And another eyerollingly preachy bit at the end about how great Tesla was. But not a bad episode and I really liked seeing Niagara Falls.

Episode 5 was pretty good, I felt. I liked it when she dug up the TARDIS. Bit more Gallifrey lore. Enjoyed the Judoon coming back. Had a laugh at Mrs Thistle's expense as she's a Gloucester girl and clearly Gloucester is where intergalactic crims would hide. The scene at the end with Ryan, Graham and Yaz telling the Doctor she's the best person ever was cringe again though. The scriptwriters need to stop with the speeches.

[Levin]

I'v watched a good chunk of new Who so far this year, episodes I'd missed and ones I remembered as being good. Pretty much all of them would have been improved if they'd finished 3-5 minutes early. Voice overs, explaining the moral, making sure the good end happily and the bad don't.

Series Six is probably the strongest overall even if I don't think any of the individual episodes are in the top ten or anything.
There should be more episodes like The God Complex and Amy's Choice, not everything needs to be explained or make sense.
Matt Smith is tremendous.
Donna is probably the best of the Tennant/Smith companions.
Freema Agyeman was poorly treated by her writers.
As was Peter Capaldi and Pearl Mackie (and I guess Matt Lucas). They are so good and given nothing.

As for this series. I don't care about Gallifrey. Its something from the Doctor Who that was on TV before I was aware that it was a program that existed. And I'm 40.

[delicatemoth]

The Master was originally intended to be permanently killed off in Pertwee's last story, but Delgado's death buggered that. I mean, I suspect that John Nathan-Turner would have revived him anyway, but it would probably have taken him longer to get around to it, and he wouldn't have been in 'The Deadly Assassin'.

I'd like to watch new Who but I-player's shittiness won't allow me to. I did recently watch 'An Unearthly Child', 'The Daleks' and 'Edge Of Destruction' and fucking hell, the tension. Also, the magnetic coolness of Susan and Barbara.

[David Agnew]

I'v watched a good chunk of new Who so far this year, episodes I'd missed and ones I remembered as being good. Pretty much all of them would have been improved if they'd finished 3-5 minutes early. Voice overs, explaining the moral, making sure the good end happily and the bad don't.

Series Six is probably the strongest overall even if I don't think any of the individual episodes are in the top ten or anything.
There should be more episodes like The God Complex and Amy's Choice, not everything needs to be explained or make sense.
Matt Smith is tremendous.
Donna is probably the best of the Tennant/Smith companions.
Freema Agyeman was poorly treated by her writers.
As was Peter Capaldi and Pearl Mackie (and I guess Matt Lucas). They are so good and given nothing.

As for this series. I don't care about Gallifrey. Its something from the Doctor Who that was on TV before I was aware that it was a program that existed. And I'm 40.

I disagree with so much of this.

Series six is full of great ideas, badly executed. The Rebel Flesh/The Amost People is the most "classic" style Who of the new era, and Night Terrors and The Girl Who Waited are really good, but the Moffat written episodes are way too overblown and a sign that he'd bought into his hype.

Amy's Choice was brilliant. Matt Smith was a fantastic Doctor.

Donna was the most annoying companion ever. They might as well have made her the daughter of Adric and Bonnie Langford.

Continually trying to rewrite the canon is tiring, Massive revelations seem a lot more important to the showrunners than the audience.

Ruth Doctor (presumably going to be a past Doctor from between Troughton & Pertwee) just seems a rehash of suddenly having John Hurt being a Doctor between McGann and Ecclestone.