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    Who?

    I'm really enjoying this series. It's like proper DW again.

    The problem with RTD's writing is that it was reactive and had a reductive view of human nature. Moffat's miles better.

    The last one was great. He's got the tone of it just right.

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      Who?

      Yoss wrote:
      Harry Truscott wrote:
      Anyway, one minor angel related quibble, if they look at each other then they're frozen forever, no?
      Only for as long as there's light on.
      That makes sense but it means the ones in 'Blink' were on the loose agin once that bulb went, no?

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        Who?

        Harry Truscott wrote:
        That makes sense but it means the ones in 'Blink' were on the loose agin once that bulb went, no?
        It would mean that, yeah, even if you don't spend any time wondering how come a deserted old house had an electricity supply at all. I'd assumed that, having frozen them and got his tardis back, the doctor was able to go back at his own leisure and find some unstated but more permanent arrangement to deal with them.

        And yes, as for why the angels this time round wanted a means of communication, I think they were just playing with them ("for fun, sir"). The last lot needed the time energy of their victims to feed off, but these ones already had all the energy they needed coming from the ship and had no need of such a measly additional morsel.

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          Who?

          Yawn. Tonight's was an expensive bore, really. Apart from the CGI, which looked as cheap as ever.

          More excited by the trailer for next week, which does look far more interesting.

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            Who?

            I really enjoyed it. I thought it was relatively well-written, and had a couple of holes, and hated the "I'm doing this because you didn't know her name", which is not only a bit RTD/Tenth Doctor overemotive schticky, but really didn't fit in with what we've seen of Matt Smith so far.

            I liked the Doctor/Amy/Rory dynamic, and I liked the fact that Toby Whithouse tried to make it a comedy episode (something which hasn't ever really worked, especially the shit one that Gareth Roberts wrote about Agatha Christie), and pretty much pulled it off.

            But, then I saw a spoiler-free preview that claimed it was similar in style to the shit one Gareth Roberts wrote about Liam Gallagher-Shakespeare, so maybe my hopes were so low going in, that anything entertaining would have worked.

            And the trailer for next week's episode is the first one I've seen that's made me think "WTF?" since the Blink trailer.

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              Who?

              I'm not sure the plot was any stronger than the Shakespeare one though, it's not difficult to imagine that if RTD had been given this script it would have been similarly bungled. I wasn't at all sure how well the fish / alien thing worked, but because of the general excellence of the characters and dialogue the background level is very good, even a relatively poor episode is enjoyable (for one viewing at least).

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                Who?

                Yeah, it had just enough good dialogue "Not vampires; fish from space" to be on the enjoyable side of meh. But Moffat's episodes have been so fizzing with surprises and twists that "Who ordinaire" seems to plod a bit these days. Don't get me wrong, God knows I was happy enough to spend 45 minutes looking at old buildings and young Goth women, but it's wasn't a memorable story.

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                  Who?

                  Ths Shakespeare plot didn't really matter - once you consider that William Shakespeare was a rock star with a Mancunian accent, and the resoluton was JK Rowling was a better writer than William Shakespeare. The equivalent on Saturday would have included the Venetian countess being talking like a Cockney Barrow Boy, and her singing "What'sa matter you, hey, gotta no respect, Whatta you tink you do, why you looka so sad, Itsa not so bad, Itsa nice-a place, Ahh shaddupa you face" just before she jumped into the water.

                  One thing that did make me think was last week's Confidential. It had Rob Shearman (Dalek) and Paul Cornell (Father's Day, Human Nature) on it -so why aren't they writing episodes for this series, when Gareth Roberts (The shit one with Shakespeare, The shit one with Agatha Christie, half of the shit one with the bus) is? I doubt it's a personal thing, Cornell was allegedly best man at Moffat's wedding, and the only reason Shearman didn't write anything for RTD after Dalek, is because he critisised elements of the rest of the first series.

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                    Who?

                    Cornell was allegedly best man at Moffat's wedding,
                    Vice versa, I think.

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                      Who?

                      45 minutes looking at old buildings and young Goth women,
                      I think the biggest strength of this was in the art design & in the direction. There were quite a few really fantastically composed shots, I thought, some really good-looking imagery.

                      I do not like Rory. I just don't get why they have to have another boyfriend hanging around, getting jealous, being boring, giving out all this crap about 'you always ask too much of people' and then sacrificing himself in some ludicrous way, no doubt, later on, while the girlfriend prances about clinging onto whichever of them she happens to be nearest at the time. Argh.

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                        Who?

                        That was rubbish. More plot holes than you could shake a stick at (not least of which being the completely inconsistent effects of sunlight on the "vampires") and a frankly boring story with a crap finale. I mean, really, that's how you resolve the apocalpyse? Just rip out the wires, climb up a tower and flick a switch? That's supposed to be satisfying? Also, what Lyra said. It's almost like Moffat is taking the piss out of RTD's Mickey, but he seems to be playing it straight. Which will be really, really annoying if so.

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                          Who?

                          I quite enjoyed it myself.

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                            Who?

                            Just about the right side of tepid, decent enough stuff, but I did feel like I was watching an episode of Merlin - there were none of the quirky ideas that Who throws up when its at its best. The other writers are going to have to raise their game now that Moffatt is in charge; but it's also down to Moffatt himself to try and keep middling runarounds like this out of the series. I couldn't work out whether the 'Doctor climbs tower to disengage alien device' scene was taking a potshot at RTD's several 'Doctor climbs tower to disengage alien device' scenes - Matt Smith seemed to be playing it very flippantly. And wouldn't it be great if the production team said more often, "Sod the extra arms - we'll dress a guy up in a monster suit rather than GCI the aliens in".

                            I really hope Simon Nye's story next week lives up to expectations.

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                              Who?

                              Mumpo wrote:
                              I couldn't work out whether the 'Doctor climbs tower to disengage alien device' scene was taking a potshot at RTD's several 'Doctor climbs tower to disengage alien device' scenes - Matt Smith seemed to be playing it very flippantly.
                              I thought it was. The fact that he turned it off with a toggle switch was what put the tin lid on it.

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                                Who?

                                hobbes wrote:
                                I quite enjoyed it myself.
                                Ah, I can read you like a book, pal.

                                Comment


                                  Who?

                                  Why on Earth... wrote:
                                  Mumpo wrote:
                                  I couldn't work out whether the 'Doctor climbs tower to disengage alien device' scene was taking a potshot at RTD's several 'Doctor climbs tower to disengage alien device' scenes - Matt Smith seemed to be playing it very flippantly.
                                  I thought it was. The fact that he turned it off with a toggle switch was what put the tin lid on it.
                                  Yes, the type of switch used was the final straw for me on a pretty terrible last ten minutes.

                                  I thought the rest of it was just OK, it relied on Smith to carry it far more than any other episode so far in the series but he's so bloody good they got away with it.

                                  He does "angry and menacing" far better than I ever imagined he would from the pre-series hype and far better than Tennant could (my wife now thinks my enthusiasm for this Doctor after an oft-professed love of his predecessor is a sign of a worrying fickleness though).

                                  Comment


                                    Who?

                                    I must admit, the episode gained a lot from its humour rather than its plot. I was left bemused by it all, really, even if, overall, it was enjoyable in a dumb way. Thing is, it's hard to feel sorry for a woman/lizard thing who chucks innocent girls into the canal to be eaten by her brood when she does the weepy 'oh, I'm the last of my race' act. Not convinced - die, bitch!

                                    And I take it the 'fifty-thousand husbands' would die of malnutrition instead of popping up out of the Venetian canals for a spot of lunch (well, Mum made it onto land, didn't she?). Hmmm...

                                    A bit all over the shop - well, very much all over the shop, but funny. A bit of a let-down after a near-magnificent two-parter.

                                    And the trailer for next week's episode is the first one I've seen that's made me think "WTF?" since the Blink trailer.

                                    Looks very promising, and you've got the excellent Toby Jones upping the interest quota. Looking forward to that.

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                                      Who?

                                      Well I don't know about anyone else but I really quite enjoyed tonight's episode. Understated would be an exaggeration, but nicely low-ish key.

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                                        Who?

                                        Yes, very good. Not a Moffatian thrillathon, but a nice change of pace. A pleasing concept, too.

                                        My favourite thing about it was that it gave us insight into how troubled the Doctor is deep down, but without any RTD-esque labouring of the point. That's the way to do it.

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                                          Who?

                                          I thought it was absolutely scintillating. It felt pleasantly like one of the more out-there episodes from the black and white days - which isn't surprising, as it was effectively a splicing of The Celestial Toymaker and The Mind Robber. As someone who thinks How Do You Want Me was one of the best sitcoms ever written, I'm so pleased that Simon Nye's script wasn't the innuendo-ridden disaster that some predicted. In fact, it was up there with Midnight and Love and Monsters as new series stories that have pushed the envelope brilliantly.

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                                            Who?

                                            With a bit of innuendo chucked in too.

                                            No, it was great, I thought. If only the senior citizens/aliens hadn't been so ridiculous.

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                                              Who?

                                              Yes, enjoyed that - some great laugh out loud moments, and some nice awkward dialogue moments too.

                                              The attack of the old folk was just cringingly funny - like an old Goodies episode .

                                              Least favourite Matt Smiff episode for the kids so far, though.

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                                                Who?

                                                I loved it. Suspenseful and interesting for the grownups, alternately scary and funny for the kids. The kids found that the scariest thing since Blink. Definitely one of the ten best since The Return.

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                                                  Who?

                                                  I must admit was trying to keep it a bit low key when we spoke, so as not to risk your being disappointed. But I agree; right up there.

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                                                    Who?

                                                    I enjoyed it, and I very much appreciated what they were trying to do, but I felt that somehow that didn't quite come off. One of the better episodes this year, if just for a few great moments, the weirdness and the superbly creepy performance by Toby Jones. But frustrating, because it so obviously could have been totally amazing.

                                                    I've noticed something a bit worrying with all the non-Moffat scripted episodes this year - when he's not working with his own material, the Moff seems a bit wobbly as a showrunner. His Weeping Angels two-parter worked so well because he's such a good Doctor Who writer now that he can have a crack at an old-fashioned alien planet adventure story and pull it off brilliantly, and his obviously (relatively) hacked-out stuff like "The Beast Below" has enough good ideas to work, and is sufficiently solid in terms of plotting that even a half-arsed story holds together. But he doesn't seem so good at working out precisely why other people's scripts aren't quite finished, and what they need to bring them up to speed.

                                                    I partly blame him for the Dalek debacle, because as Head Writer he should have hammered that bitch until it made sense (and warned Gattis that any more scripts this shoddy would be rejected - this is assuming there's no back story to the production of that episode that we don't yet know about). The vampire thing I guess I'll give him a pass on, because even if it was bog-standard stuff, at least it sort-of worked for what it was. But this is the kind of episode where Moffat should be in his element, and it really needed one more idea - just one - to stop it being such a basic back-and-forth which never quite lived up to its promise. One more plot twist or bright idea to make everything else work perfectly, instead of a really good episode which choked a bit, because once you got past the fantastic premise it didn't really go anywhere.

                                                    If Simon Nye couldn't come up with that, it's Moffat's responsibility. You don't chuck away a story with this much potential, but you don't just wave it through when it clearly needs one final tweak. I mean, sure it's a lot of work when you're already writing six episodes a year, but that's why you get half a million quid or whatever the hell he's on. One more night with the wet towel on your forehead and you've cracked it.

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