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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Doctor Who: Silence will fall - the Doctor Who thread returns
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
The scariest Who since the first weeping angel episode**. It is still scary after watching confidential and then re-watching. I loved the quicksand carpet. I think the creepiness comes from seeing things we take for granted (Angels, dolls, shop dummies) used in a sinister way.
I don't care that there are plot holes. So what? In the whoniverse you can contradict yourself. In the classic series the Doctor was revealed to be half human, a regeneration later and he's 100% alien.
Back to this week: Inside the dolls' house all the things were either items you'd expect to find there, including dolls, or things George had sent there. With one exception, the giant glass eye.
One one level you could say it was something that George was scared of and had sent there. But why was it shown? It served no purpose in plot development, I can only think that its significance is something to do with the story arc. LRP thinks the eye is something to do with eyepatch lady.
** In the Whoniverse only Torchwood fairies are scarier.
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Last ever sig ...
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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The story has a boy born with practically unlimited reality altering powers who uses them to bury anyone who displeases him under the wheat field/ corn field (because everybody has been too afraid to teach him not to). The small town exists in a pocket universe, either because the child put it there when he was born or because he destroyed everywhere else.
As others said that one's "Its a good life". A stunning story. I first read it in Edmund Crispin's "Best SF 4" anthology (published by Faber's) which must be one of the best and also scariest anthologies every collected.
As well at that story there are "The Short Life" (Francis Donovan), "A Subway Named Mobius" (A. J. Deutsch), "Flowers for Algernon" (Daniel Keyes), "The Yellow Pill" (Rog Phillips) - after which The Matrix holds no surprises,
and four or five others, all good. Brilliant.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
Amazed this has been so well recieved by Shipmates. I found it very dull - over used monsters, repetitive ending, and yet another new alien race thrown away without anything interesting happening. Same old, same old, I'm afraid.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
Thank you, phil2357, wilson, and ken.
I must have read the story over twenty years ago.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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M.
Ship's Spare Part
# 3291
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Posted
Originally posted by Balaam:
quote:
Back to this week: Inside the dolls' house all the things were either items you'd expect to find there, including dolls, or things George had sent there. With one exception, the giant glass eye.
I thought that a doll's eye was exactly the sort of thing that might get put in a drawer in a doll's house, and regarded it as just another thing telling you that it was a doll's house.
I hadn't thought of a possible eye-patch connection.
M.
Posts: 2303 | From: Lurking in Surrey | Registered: Sep 2002
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by M.:
Originally posted by Balaam:
quote:
Back to this week: Inside the dolls' house all the things were either items you'd expect to find there, including dolls, or things George had sent there. With one exception, the giant glass eye.
I thought that a doll's eye was exactly the sort of thing that might get put in a drawer in a doll's house, and regarded it as just another thing telling you that it was a doll's house.
I hadn't thought of a possible eye-patch connection.
M.
I viewed it as something to scare Amy, who had kept seeing single eyes everywhere. And yes, a glass eye - or dolls eyes - could have been put by George in there.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Mrs B and I liked it: a discrete story (no intrusive series arc to struggle with, monsters drawn from primal fears, a moving ending etc.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Miniaturised people two episodes running.
I hadn't thought about the eye, but it reminds me of the eyes in the wall in the Flesh monastery.
Penny
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Sparrow
Shipmate
# 2458
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Posted
I obviously need to watch it again - I must have missed something, because it didn't scare me in the slightest.
I was annoyed almost from the outset by the parents - what kind of idiot tries to allay a child's fears by putting all the scary things in a cupboard - in the child's room??
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For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life,nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Posts: 3149 | From: Bottom right hand corner of the UK | Registered: Mar 2002
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I wondered about a Narnia reference.
Penny
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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The Revolutionist
Shipmate
# 4578
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
I wondered about a Narnia reference.
Penny
There are rumours going around that this year's Doctor Who Christmas special (which is just beginning filming) will be somehow Narnia-themed or flavoured. There was a lovely comic strip in Doctor Who Magazine that featured C S Lewis last year, I think, so I wonder if it'll be based on or similar to that.
Posts: 1296 | From: London | Registered: May 2003
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doubtingthomas
Shipmate
# 14498
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by wilson:
On arcs I was speaking generally that they aren't per se a bad thing. I think I agree that overall Dr Who hasn't done them particularly well.
A shortcoming it shares with other shows...
The problem is it is (relatively) easy to do a show that is purely episodic like early Star Trek (original and TNG, which had some character continuity, but each story could stand perfectly well on its own), or one that is primarily arc-driven (like Babylon 5 in the 90s, which was essentially a continuous visual novel with occasional stand-alone chapters).
Mixing the two successfully, however, is very difficult, and I think Who is making a decent job of trying, even though there are obvious problems (mentioned at various points in this thread).
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'We are star-stuff. We are the Universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out'
Delenn (Babylon 5)
Posts: 266 | From: A Small Island | Registered: Jan 2009
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Revolutionist:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
I wondered about a Narnia reference.
Penny
There are rumours going around that this year's Doctor Who Christmas special (which is just beginning filming) will be somehow Narnia-themed or flavoured. There was a lovely comic strip in Doctor Who Magazine that featured C S Lewis last year, I think, so I wonder if it'll be based on or similar to that.
Didn't see that, but would like to. However, given the current series' attitude to religion, it would be interesting to see how Moffat would use Narnia. There wasn't anything good in there with the Hunca Munca doll's house.
Penny
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Twangist
Shipmate
# 16208
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Posted
The Eldest Twanglet said "That's the scariest one ever. I'm not going to watch it again on the i-Player ... end of."
Mrs T and I were in stiches.
It did look very much like Hunca-Munca's house didn't it?
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JJ
SDG
blog
Posts: 604 | From: Devon | Registered: Feb 2011
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
Here, they had a bogus monster special with annoying and unknown US actors. It was unwatchable. We went to a Doctor Who museum at Land's End a few years ago and saw flying Daleks. It was awesome. The last programme I saw was about Hitler and the last war: pretty scary!
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by doubtingthomas:
The problem is it is (relatively) easy to do a show that is purely episodic like early Star Trek (original and TNG...
I went to high school with Michael Dorn who plays Warf, but I rarely watch the re-runs.
I wonder how close the Doctor Who episodes we get here are to the original BBC timelines.
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Nenya
Shipmate
# 16427
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Posted
I agree about the latest episode being enjoyable and stand-alone, my whole family's been finding it hard to get their heads round the intricacies and weirdness of the main storyline. And I find someone of River Song's age kissing the Doctor and calling Amy "mother" thoroughly squicks me.
None of us was particularly scared by it, apart from Mr Nen who sat making various freaked-out noises and at one point talked of getting behind the sofa - which is, of course, the place from which Dr Who should be watched anyway. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
I was enjoying Torchwood but had to stop a couple of episodes ago as the violence got to me. I've heard about subsequent episodes and would like to have seen Captain Jack in flagrante but just can't risk seeing the violence. ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
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They told me I was delusional. I nearly fell off my unicorn.
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Gill H
Shipmate
# 68
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Posted
Enjoyed this. Way better than Fear Her despite similar ideas.
Mind Robber was mentioned upthread - the soldier in the dolls' house reminded me of that one.
The dad was great. So different from his role in Ashes to Ashes.
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*sigh* We can’t all be Alan Cresswell.
- Lyda Rose
Posts: 9313 | From: London | Registered: May 2001
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gill H:
Enjoyed this. Way better than Fear Her despite similar ideas.
Mind Robber was mentioned upthread - the soldier in the dolls' house reminded me of that one.
The dad was great. So different from his role in Ashes to Ashes.
Actually, what reminded me of The Mind Robber was the "next time" trailer - the blank white wasteland, the white robots ...
(I'm a big fan of The Mind Robber. It's terribly postmodern, y'know. Its main problems are that it's a four-parter stretched out to five at short notice, because of a gap in the schedules, iirc. And the faffing around with Jamie's identity because of Fraser Hines's sick leave. If you can persuade yourself to think of it as a four-part story without that faffing around, it's really rather good.)
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Pine Marten
Shipmate
# 11068
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Posted
I like The Mind Robber too. When it was mentioned on this thread earlier I checked it on Amazon and yelled 'Oh, it's that one!' as I remembered it from the first time round, and always wanted to see it again. I particularly remembered the big book and Rapunzel.
I agree with others that this week's ep's ending was too rushed, and the idea of putting scary things in the cupboard! just freaked me. But it's still one of the best programmes on TV, even when it's irritating.
eta: blimey, it's Thursday already - last week's ep. Oh well, Torchwood tonight.
[ 08. September 2011, 10:29: Message edited by: Pine Marten ]
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Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. - Oscar Wilde
Posts: 1731 | From: Isle of Albion | Registered: Feb 2006
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Nenya
Shipmate
# 16427
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zappa:
quote:
Originally posted by Nenya:
squicks
![[Confused]](confused.gif) ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Good word, isn't it? A combination of "squirm" and "ick!"
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They told me I was delusional. I nearly fell off my unicorn.
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Earwig
Pincered Beastie
# 12057
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nenya:
quote:
Originally posted by Zappa:
quote:
Originally posted by Nenya:
squicks
Good word, isn't it? A combination of "squirm" and "ick!"
Sort of... but if you don't know what it is, don't look up 'squicking' on the net. And certainly not at work, near children, or if you're squeamish.
Posts: 3120 | From: Yorkshire | Registered: Nov 2006
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Eigon
Shipmate
# 4917
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Posted
I knew I recognised the dad, but I couldn't think where I'd seen him! So it's DI Keating from Ashes to Ashes!
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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
Posts: 3710 | From: Hay-on-Wye, town of books | Registered: Aug 2003
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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
Speaking of squick what did you all make of The Blessing?
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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Eigon
Shipmate
# 4917
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Posted
I do hope that the final answer isn't just to chuck Captain Jack's blood at that thing.
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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
Posts: 3710 | From: Hay-on-Wye, town of books | Registered: Aug 2003
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iGeek
Number of the Feast
# 777
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Posted
me too. Shall find out tonight!
Posts: 2150 | From: West End, Gulfopolis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Jahlove
Tied to the mast
# 10290
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Posted
More from the Dr Who Monster Book of Fun Quotes:
"One thing I can tell you, Alex, monsters are real"
"You're not from Social Services are you?"
"First things first - you got any Jammy Dodgers?"
Inside the Doll's House - excellent, really scary concept.
Pond useless as usual.EXTAMYNATE!!
(Nothing has been, or will ever be, better than *Human Nature* imo).
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“Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.” - Mark Twain
Posts: 6477 | From: Alice's Restaurant (UK Franchise) | Registered: Sep 2005
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Sparrow
Shipmate
# 2458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eigon:
I do hope that the final answer isn't just to chuck Captain Jack's blood at that thing.
What on earth was it supposed to be? I know I was watching on a rather small screen TV but all I could see was a big red wall.
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For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life,nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Posts: 3149 | From: Bottom right hand corner of the UK | Registered: Mar 2002
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Eigon
Shipmate
# 4917
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Posted
And how's it supposed to go all the way through, anyway - doesn't this planet have a molten core?
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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
Posts: 3710 | From: Hay-on-Wye, town of books | Registered: Aug 2003
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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
Well I've just watched the final episode of Torchwood. Turns out that despite looking like what the AV Club describes as a "malevolent immortality vagina" The Blessing is actually supposed to be made of rock.
I don't want to spoil anyone who's yet to watch it so I'll just say this. If you've been disappointed at this series of Torchwood and hoped that it would raise its game for the final episode then I think you'll be disappointed again. It had the same muddled tone, the same sense of good ideas insufficiently explored, or not developed in a satisfying way.
I also think that some of the drama depends on us having become convinced that Miracle Day overall was a bad thing and needs to be reversed. I'm not sure they quite convinced me on that.
[ 10. September 2011, 17:42: Message edited by: wilson ]
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
Superb. Absolutely superb. Stylish design, intelligent camerawork, and kick-ass performances. After nearly 48 years, Doctor Who can still surprise, move, and delight.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
It was good. It was indeed very good.
It wouldn't be a Doctor Who thread without some niggles, but did I miss any of the characters alluding to Rory's two thousand years as a Roman? (Something even more similar happened to Rory in The Doctor's Wife, but that was in Amy's head.)
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Sparrow
Shipmate
# 2458
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Posted
Now that's more like it. Great writing with some really thought provoking stuff. Terrific performances from everyone, Karen G may not be everyone's cup of tea but she certainly pulled out all the stops here.
It seems to me that in the non-story-arc episodes (i.e. not the ones with River Song) it is all becoming more and more about Rory and Amy and the Doctor is becoming sidelined. (And why not? for a while anyway).
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For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life,nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Posts: 3149 | From: Bottom right hand corner of the UK | Registered: Mar 2002
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Nenya
Shipmate
# 16427
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Earwig:
quote:
Originally posted by Nenya:
quote:
Originally posted by Zappa:
quote:
Originally posted by Nenya:
squicks
Good word, isn't it? A combination of "squirm" and "ick!"
Sort of... but if you don't know what it is, don't look up 'squicking' on the net. And certainly not at work, near children, or if you're squeamish.
So I should have said "creeps me out" to avoid ambiguity. Sorry.
Tonight's episode was an absolute corker; great stuff. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) We enjoyed Confidential too.
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They told me I was delusional. I nearly fell off my unicorn.
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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
It wouldn't be a Doctor Who thread without some niggles, but did I miss any of the characters alluding to Rory's two thousand years as a Roman? (Something even more similar happened to Rory in The Doctor's Wife, but that was in Amy's head.)
No you didn't but it should have been there.
"36 years? You call that a lifetime? Well excuse me! Try 60 times that!"
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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doubtingthomas
Shipmate
# 14498
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sir Kevin:
I went to high school with Michael Dorn who plays Warf...
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
(apologies for slow reaction - have been off-line for a while...)
quote:
I wonder how close the Doctor Who episodes we get here are to the original BBC timelines.
Do you mean the broadcasting order? Where can I see the US schedules to compare?
Alternatively, the UK ones are on the BBC website.
Posts: 266 | From: A Small Island | Registered: Jan 2009
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doubtingthomas
Shipmate
# 14498
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Posted
The best epidode in a long time.
quote:
Originally posted by Sparrow:
...it is all becoming more and more about Rory and Amy and the Doctor is becoming sidelined. (And why not? for a while anyway).
I had hoped they would get married and stay companions long before it was even likely that it would happen.
This is one of the reasons why.
![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif)
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'We are star-stuff. We are the Universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out'
Delenn (Babylon 5)
Posts: 266 | From: A Small Island | Registered: Jan 2009
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Snags
Utterly socially unrealistic
# 15351
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Posted
I'm really torn on tonight's DW. Some of the acting and the emotional tweaky bits were done very well. But ... the setup. I mean, FFS. Normal people would not have behaved like that, let alone people who are now used to just how drastic a visit from the cock-up fairy can be. Even Joe Average, having seen two buttons of distinct colour, and pressed one, when asked by their companion what to do, would respond "Press the <colour> button".
Even if they didn't, any normal human being faced with "Press the button" and looking at two buttons would say "Which one?". I've worked with some staggeringly daft people at times, and none of them would have gone through the opening sequence in the way Rory & Amy had to in order to set up the "split up the party" scenario.
That was such a huge CLANG! that it took me a long while to work up to giving a monkey's about the story afterwards.
Add to that: all the bleating about 36 years, compared to Rory's hanging around for two millenia; abandoned Amy who's normally useless other than when acting on instinctive impulse somehow working out how to do all the superhero stuff, including constructing her sonic 'probe'; Amy whose whole history with the Doctor is based on his "in a minute" returns being epic cock-ups and delays getting the grumps about it all; the decidedly relative-ethics version of the Doctor ... only the very well acted bits on loss, love and choice pulled it back from being a throwing cushions at the TV job.
It felt like an episode designed to say, Hey folks, look, Amy isn't useless, she's suddenly pulled all this really cool survival stuff out of thin air. And look, she's got this deep emotional centre, and she really does love Rory, so you know, cut her some slack and like her. I'm not entirely sure it worked.
OTOH, if they're trying to set up a harder, colder, more sinister Doctor, that they're starting to do.
[Edited for the worst of the typos and grammar]
[ 10. September 2011, 21:12: Message edited by: Snags ]
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Vain witterings :-: Vain pretentions :-: The Dog's Blog(locks)
Posts: 1399 | From: just north of That London | Registered: Dec 2009
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Roseofsharon
Shipmate
# 9657
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Roseofsharon:
I find dolls/puppets/ventriloquists' dummies that become animated much more scary than monsters and aliens,
Forgot to mention clowns!
Looking forward to next week's episode in a transfixed in terror sort of way.
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Talk about books -any books- on our rejuvenatedforum http://www.bookgrouponline.com/index.php?
Posts: 3060 | From: Sussex By The Sea | Registered: Jun 2005
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
And they were toying with the idea of two of Amy, one of whom was going to be a lot like River Song. Duplicates again. It was odd not to mention Rory's long wait, though his experience must have been different, as he was not getting older. I didn't notice that.
Penny
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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The Revolutionist
Shipmate
# 4578
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Superb. Absolutely superb. Stylish design, intelligent camerawork, and kick-ass performances. After nearly 48 years, Doctor Who can still surprise, move, and delight.
Agreed! A great episode, although a bleak one - it really makes you feel for Old Amy, and it doesn't pull its punches with the choice that Rory must make. It packs a real emotional punch, but that makes it in some ways more an episode to admire than enjoy. There is in fact lots to enjoy, of course - cracking performances from Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill, sharp dialogue (the line about Christmas dinner was great!) and it looks great as usual.
This episode could be called "Rory's Choice". Whereas Amy had to choose between Rory and the Doctor, it's entirely appropriate that Rory should face the choice between two versions of Amy - for him, it's only ever been about Amy. Like the white-faced robots who would kill Amy with their kindness, it's Rory's kindness to Old Amy that risks killing the Amy he knows. It also reinforces the danger of travelling with the Doctor - he might mean well, but he makes mistakes, and Old Amy's experiences show how costly they can be for those around him.
Questions of identity once again abound: are you the same person after 36 years? For Old Amy, having her timeline rewritten seems like death - the Amy she has become will no longer exist, or ever have existed. It also foreshadows the Doctor's death at Lake Silencio much more subtly than dropping in shots of the details of his death on the TARDIS monitor screen, echoing his problem thematically instead. Will the Doctor tear up the rule book to escape his fate, like Amy? If he does, what will the consequences be for the universe?
Tom MacRae's writing already graced our screens with Rise of the Cybermen. That story was fine, but much more of a conventional monster story. Here he shows he's got the writing muscle to pull off an intense and character-focused piece of drama with skill and wit. It's the best episode of the autumn run so far, and to my mind one of the best of series 6 as a whole.
I've been waiting a long time for an episode that would really show us how much Amy cares for Rory, underneath all her bluster and banter. Like the Doctor and Rory coming to the rescue after 36 years, The Girl Who Waited was worth waiting for.
You can hear my podcast discussion of the episode over at Impossible Podcasts.
Posts: 1296 | From: London | Registered: May 2003
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Jahlove
Tied to the mast
# 10290
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Snags:
I'm really torn on tonight's DW. Some of the acting and the emotional tweaky bits were done very well. But ... the setup. I mean, FFS. Normal people would not have behaved like that, let alone people who are now used to just how drastic a visit from the cock-up fairy can be. Even Joe Average, having seen two buttons of distinct colour, and pressed one, when asked by their companion what to do, would respond "Press the <colour> button".
Even if they didn't, any normal human being faced with "Press the button" and looking at two buttons would say "Which one?". I've worked with some staggeringly daft people at times, and none of them would have gone through the opening sequence in the way Rory & Amy had to in order to set up the "split up the party" scenario.
That was such a huge CLANG! that it took me a long while to work up to giving a monkey's about the story afterwards.
Add to that: all the bleating about 36 years, compared to Rory's hanging around for two millenia; abandoned Amy who's normally useless other than when acting on instinctive impulse somehow working out how to do all the superhero stuff, including constructing her sonic 'probe'; Amy whose whole history with the Doctor is based on his "in a minute" returns being epic cock-ups and delays getting the grumps about it all; the decidedly relative-ethics version of the Doctor ... only the very well acted bits on loss, love and choice pulled it back from being a throwing cushions at the TV job.
It felt like an episode designed to say, Hey folks, look, Amy isn't useless, she's suddenly pulled all this really cool survival stuff out of thin air. And look, she's got this deep emotional centre, and she really does love Rory, so you know, cut her some slack and like her. I'm not entirely sure it worked.
OTOH, if they're trying to set up a harder, colder, more sinister Doctor, that they're starting to do.
[Edited for the worst of the typos and grammar]
You have to remember Amy's an Idiot
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“Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.” - Mark Twain
Posts: 6477 | From: Alice's Restaurant (UK Franchise) | Registered: Sep 2005
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
Another very dull episode, I'm afraid. It might have worked a bit if I'd cared at all about Amy - but since I was hoping she would die in childbirth it didn't. And Old Amy's reluctance to help didn't convince me at all. If I could go back 10 years, or 36, to correct something that made me miserable now, I would do it at once. And if my miserable existence evaporated because a happier one came into being - wey hay! What is the problem? The only thing that impressed me was the make up on Old Amy, which was very effective.
On a wider front I have been hearing interesting rumours about the problems besetting this series. According to the rumours (and I have no idea if these are true or not) it wasn't originally planned to be in two halves. But early on two key people in production got sacked, and the whole thing began to fall apart. It was massively behind schedule, and way over budget, so the decision was taken to air what had been made. As a result we were shown 7 episodes out of order - the series was meant to end with the baby being kidnapped, and the search for it would have been the story behind the next series. In addition, there's been a lot less money to throw around, as Matt and Karen have failed to impress the viewing public. Their DVDs have only sold a fraction of what Eccleston and Tennant did, so there has been far less money coming in that was anticipated. Hence you get minimalist epsiodes, like tonight's.
As I said, this is simply what I've heard when chatting to other fans. Anyone here have any thoughts about how (un)likely any of it is?
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Jahlove
Tied to the mast
# 10290
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Posted
oh god i need a bacon sandwich
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“Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.” - Mark Twain
Posts: 6477 | From: Alice's Restaurant (UK Franchise) | Registered: Sep 2005
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The Revolutionist
Shipmate
# 4578
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Posted
quote:
On a wider front I have been hearing interesting rumours about the problems besetting this series. According to the rumours (and I have no idea if these are true or not) it wasn't originally planned to be in two halves. But early on two key people in production got sacked, and the whole thing began to fall apart. It was massively behind schedule, and way over budget, so the decision was taken to air what had been made. As a result we were shown 7 episodes out of order - the series was meant to end with the baby being kidnapped, and the search for it would have been the story behind the next series. In addition, there's been a lot less money to throw around, as Matt and Karen have failed to impress the viewing public. Their DVDs have only sold a fraction of what Eccleston and Tennant did, so there has been far less money coming in that was anticipated. Hence you get minimalist epsiodes, like tonight's.
As I said, this is simply what I've heard when chatting to other fans. Anyone here have any thoughts about how (un)likely any of it is?
That's pretty much got no resemblance to reality - most of this sounds like it originates in some rumours published in Private Eye a month or two ago, only even more exaggerated and distorted.
There are a couple of elements where the source of the rumour can be identified, but the reality is much more mundane. Firstly, the idea that the series has been reordered and split as an emergency measure due to behind the scenes panics.
In fact, the decision to split the series was mainly based around Steven Moffat's plan to reveal River Song's identity as the mid-series cliffhanger, and was planned as such from the start. There was one change in running order: last week's episode, Night Terrors, was with The Curse of the Black Spot, because the producers decided that it was a better mix visually (they didn't want too many episodes in the dark with torches too close to each other!). They reshot a couple of scenes (the eyepatch woman's appearance, and the Doctor's date of death on the monitor) to fit with the arc, but that's the extent of chopping and changing. The overall structure is just as it has been all along.
Secondly, changes of staff: two of the producers have moved or are about to move on, but they haven't been sacked, and the transition is entirely orderly - outgoing producer Piers Wenger is co-producing the Christmas special with Caroline Skinner, the new exec, to show her the ropes (see this article on the BBC Doctor Who site). Moffat condemned reports in "Private Eye" that producers had been sacked as "nasty, inaccurate rumours".
As for "Matt and Karen have failed to impress the viewing public" - really?! Reviews and reactions have been very positive, especially following a Doctor as phenomenally popular as Tennant. Ratings remain very strong, around 7-8 million in total (though a much higher proportion comes from iPlayer and timeshift rather than overnights compared to when Tennant was the Doctor).
As for budget, even if DVD sales are declining, that has no effect on the production budget of the show. Because the BBC is funded by the license fee, programme-making and commercial activities are separate as part of the BBC's Charter. BBC budgets as a whole are squeezed a bit more tightly at the moment, but each series of "Doctor Who" has had cheaper episodes (though some disguise it more successfully) - last year's The Lodger for example.
So the rumours are a load of rubbish. Some elements might have started out with some grain of truth somewhere in the distant past, but have long since lost any connection to reality.
Posts: 1296 | From: London | Registered: May 2003
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art dunce
Shipmate
# 9258
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Posted
A new nadir for NuWho.
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Ego is not your amigo.
Posts: 1283 | From: in the studio | Registered: Apr 2005
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Revolutionist:
In fact, the decision to split the series was mainly based around Steven Moffat's plan to reveal River Song's identity as the mid-series cliffhanger, and was planned as such from the start.
And, iirc, the idea of moving the show to an autumn timeslot without an almost 18 month gap between series? But you're right, there's no way the show is failing or in trouble. Matt Smith is a very popular Doctor, and I think a lot of people like the Amy-Rory partnership. I must confess to a slight disappointment with Moffat's own writing for the show since he took over, but that's virtually inevitable because the demands on him are very different.
I think there have been some extremely good episodes in the last couple of years - Amy's Choice and Vincent and the Doctor last year; The Doctor's Wife and The Girl who Waited so far this year. But obviously the style of the show is different, even from five years ago. It has to be. I'm also a big fan of large chunks of the "classic" series, but there's no way you could make a tv programme like that now. And I don't just mean the special effects - the pace of the old show is far too slow by modern standards. Every now and then the action would stop for a long, tedious info-dump of explanation about why things were happening the way they were. These days, viewers expect blink-and-you-miss-it explanations, if at all. (Take last night, for example - the Handbots' anaesthetic, and their deadly "kindness" were dealt with in about ten seconds flat.)
Robert Armin, I'd love to ask what, for you, is good Doctor Who? (Ask that on most fan sites and you tend to get very predictable answers. Sine this is the Ship, surprise me!)
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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