Doctor Who - Christmas Invasion

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 8:12 pm

Well...

...quite frankly...

BRILLIANT!

Post by **Denyer** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 8:18 pm

No second chances.

Gosh, I hope this one stays around for more than a season. We're rapidly approaching the time for re-looming.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 8:38 pm

He's said that if they'll have him, he'll definitely stay on for more than one season.

I thought that was the most effortless portrayal I've seen since Doc 4...

Jetfire · Post by **Jetfire** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 9:11 pm

Mostly Brilliant. I really love the new Doctor. The wit and manical edge were great and the brilliant "No second chances" was chilling.

The negatives:

A bit to much wank over the abilities of the Doctor by most of the characters, e.g. Harriet's almost hysterical TV beg-a-thon for the Doc, a bit OTT considering she briefly met him once and hardly saw most of what he did in that incident.

Same with Rose. The crying about the Doctor was too OTT. And as Cliffy points out been done before. A bit too much of the episode was characters on the estate saying how they are useless without the Doc, minsters and military men say the exact same thing and then the chavs and politicians getting together to say the same thing again. Hammered it in far to much, but it does sound harsher than it should as it was a enjoyable episode.

The good stuff:

Well everything else. Nice CGI, better than ever before.

Nice fast paced story, very little of the Doctor-but that was the point.

Brilliant start with the TARDIS crashing.

The Doc was different but still made you feel he was the same character.

Nice alterations to the Doctor's character, the manic and funny tone but with the dark and brutal edge to it.

Tennent- Absolutely brilliant! The episode picked up brilliantly when he entered. He's got that vibe which says he could be made for this role and showed a good bit of chemistry with Piper. I can't wait till he starts using one of the shows better writers dialogue.

Brilliant ending. RTD's best ending by far in how the evil aliens were delt with and Doc's "6 words to bring you down" disposal of the PM.

Nice preview of the next series.

Oh, and Merry Christmas everybody. Know I've not been around, moved house and now I don't have a computer.

Impactor returns 2.0 · Post by **Impactor returns 2.0** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 9:16 pm

am i the only person who finds the acting cringe worthy? - good fun, but its pretty hammy

Post by **Denyer** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 1:19 am

It's perhaps an acquired taste. I'm not keen on the current side characters (Captain Jack was good fun, though) but the Doctor was excellent. So was Chris "I'm scared of getting typecast, despite already being typecast as a Northern hard man" E.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 1:48 am

Impactor returns 2.0 wrote:am i the only person who finds the acting cringe worthy? - good fun, but its pretty hammy

Jackie and Mickey are slightly hammy, but have been toned down recently thankfully.

Tennant got the balance just right whilst Billie's acting is just terrific as ever IMO.

Impactor returns 2.0 · Post by **Impactor returns 2.0** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 2:00 am

I think billie does really well.
I watch it, but sometimes I think its a bit all rubber monsters and tacky.
Thats not to say i dont enjoy it, which is the main thing i guess.

Tonights episode tho, trial by combat? with swords, I just erm at that a bit to much, doest matter really.

I liked the way we took out the space ship using that secret weapon, that was cool.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 2:15 am

The money was really up there on the screen wasn't it?

I mean.. better effects than most American scifi shows. Most of it was movie worthy.

Darth Aux · Post by **Darth Aux** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 10:06 am

I rushed home at 18:50 from a family gathering to watch it in peace, glad I did.

The:
"who is he?"
"He's the Dr"
"Dr Who?"
bit was a bit tacky. But I really enjoyed it, looking forward to the series.

Impactor returns 2.0 · Post by **Impactor returns 2.0** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 5:37 pm

I think the effects are clsing on Hollywood/movie production they still lack the final finesse a big film has, understandbale of course..

The best effect was the Northwood (was that it?) Green laser - that was clever as they had to join sat photos and lighting, lots of compositing there. the explosion was well done to as these things can generally looks *****, they actually generated a particle explosion, instead of compositing in a exploding barrel of petrol which is how its alwasy been done in films till the mid 90's
first time id seen TV do it so well tho.

n generall tho, some of the spot effects really let it down, the enrgy whip death scene isnt very executed as the blue flash didnt light anything else in the room, its also the ost diffacult effect to achive saying that as u have real actors and heavy CGI being cut in and out at precise times. saying that its probably just me who notices.

Rubber monsters, they should really call up the boys at Star Trek here for tips I feel, they deal with posthetics every weekly episode (or did) and seemed to have abetter understanding of it.

the Tardis crash scene was tricky, they would have employed a motion detection camera that tracks points via some clever software - that was done flawless, as i expect the Beeb have easy access to this - what didnt look right was the Royal Mail van that sort of swerved a bit oddly, at first I thought it was CGI but then I think they actualy moved in a compositor, which is a bit cheap. the reason being the expensive camera rig probably couldnt be set up again, and so they comprimised in post preduction. a common thing to do of course really outside of hollywood.

Being fair, I have an eagle eye for every effect in a film, my mind does tend to race as i try to think how some effects are achived and thus im not your average public member watching this. I expect 90% of things I see are not even considered for a moment by the average viewer, im always thinking "how could that be better?" or what would polish it off.
theres of course a cost relation to everything and things are filmed on a budget.

I was really impressed with the shots of the alien craft over london, it had an impresive size due to cloud cover and atmospheric effects distorting the space ship at its furthest points.

xmass tree was cool!

Post by **Best First** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 6:44 pm

i thouht there was a noticeable leap in pop culture references. which is nice.

Billy listing everything from last series and stumbling over <hard to pronounce planet> was a good in joke.

Agree the pleading and whining for the doctor was a bit much, come on people, grow some nuts.

sword fight felt a bit funny to me.

But overall loved Tennant, really enjoyed it and thought the dark twist (and Thatcher reference) at the end was brillinat.

Professor Smooth · Post by **Professor Smooth** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 6:48 pm

What happened in this ep?

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 8:16 pm

Apparently it got 9.4 million viewers! That makes it the second most watched programme of the day, 2nd to Eastenders and above Corrie.

Professor Smooth wrote:What happened in this ep?

Synopsis here:
http://www.gallifreyone.com/episode.php?id=2005-14

Jetfire · Post by **Jetfire** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 10:12 pm

Professor Smooth wrote:What happened in this ep?

In short:

The TARDIS crash lands in modern day earth (though by my calculations they are 2-3 years ahead now) the Doc, now in a new body after regenerating walks out and falls unconscience.

Later the Doc is breathing energy and some aliens attack Rose and Micky. The Doc wakes to save them and hint they are only scavengers, something bigger is comming.

A huge alien fleet arrive. suddleny 1/3 of eveerybody falls into a trance and walks to edges of buildings looking like they are going to kill themselves.

The PM of britain doesn't know what to do and her top men are equally useless. Edventually they get beamed up to the ship which hovers over London. They say they will force those 1/3 to killthemselves unless they surender.

Rose and Micky p### about in the TARDIS whichthe alien ship beams up to see why there is such high level tech on earth. Rose and Micky fails to convince the aliens after they spill tea by the Doctor but the tea fumes wake the Doctor up who bundles into action, realises how the humans are being controlled and reverses it. He challenges the leader to a duel and wins-thanks in part to the fact he is still in his regeneratiuon cycle and his body and heal extreamly fast.

After he wins the alien turns on him and the doc ruthlessly knocks him off the wing of the ship which is miles above London with the statement "No second chances" (Quite a dark moment from the Doctor).

The aliens leave but the Prime Minister orders a blast that destroys the ship as it leaves. This makes the Doctor angry and points out that was murder. The Doctor turns on the Prime minister and then plants a seed to politician that she clearly isn't up to the job (in 6 words). By the next day the Prime Minister is fighting for her job. The Doc invites Rose to join him again and they all look up at the sky.

At the end there was also a preview of the next series which can be watched here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/video/

Bouncelot · Post by **Bouncelot** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 4:26 pm

I really liked it. OK, so the Santas and the Tree were rather superfluous, but I loved Tennant's portrayal, and the big confrontation. The effects are about as good as TV gets. And it tickled my heart that Who was THE highlight of Christmas TV, as endorsed by pretty much every TV guide on the market.

Oh, and the laser effect was a team called Torchwood. Expect to hear more about them in the coming series - Torchwood is the name of the spin-off series they're planning for BBC 3 starring Captain Jack.

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 6:14 pm

Jetfire wrote: A bit to much wank over the abilities of the Doctor by most of the characters, e.g. Harriet's almost hysterical TV beg-a-thon for the Doc, a bit OTT considering she briefly met him once and hardly saw most of what he did in that incident.

I'd assumed she'd just read his UNIT file at some point between episodes, but then she got confused by his change of appearence. Then again, so did Colonel Chrichton in The Five Doctors and the Brigette in Battlefield, so perhaps the file simply doesn't mention the face change thing?

I wonder why she had to do a TV adress to try and contact the Doctor anyway, what happened to the Space-Time Telegraph?

Bouncelot · Post by **Bouncelot** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 8:33 pm

inflatable dalek wrote:I wonder why she had to do a TV adress to try and contact the Doctor anyway, what happened to the Space-Time Telegraph?

I think the Brigadier stole it for personal use. And if he's A positive...

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 9:52 pm

Jetfire wrote:The TARDIS crash lands in modern day earth (though by my calculations they are 2-3 years ahead now) the Doc, now in a new body after regenerating walks out and falls unconscience.

The aliens leave but the Prime Minister orders a blast that destroys the ship as it leaves. This makes the Doctor angry and points out that was murder. The Doctor turns on the Prime minister and then plants a seed to politician that she clearly isn't up to the job (in 6 words). By the next day the Prime Minister is fighting for her job. The Doc invites Rose to join him again and they all look up at the sky.

At the end of World War Three, the Doctor says that he remembers where he recognises Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North, from: Prime Minister for 3 consecutive terms, heralding in Britain's Golden Age.

Now, if he's not lying about that, then, as central government terms are usually 3-5 years in duration (although there is no real minimum), either the episode is actually set in the early 2020's, which seems unlikely as Mickey doesn't look like he's in his early 40's, or the Doctor's meddling has resulted in denying Jones her re-elections. Which is much more likely.

Or perhaps Jones was able to shake off this minor upset to her leadership.

Post by **Denyer** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 3:43 am

Rebis wrote:if he's not lying about that

I think he probably was... or embellishing drastically on the basis of one probably strand of time that was in evidence at that moment, anyway...

Bouncelot · Post by **Bouncelot** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 7:52 am

Denyer wrote:
Rebis wrote:if he's not lying about that
I think he probably was... or embellishing drastically on the basis of one probably strand of time that was in evidence at that moment, anyway...

Unless, of course, he's just changed history. As for the date, it's clearly 2006 - there's still scaffolding on St Stephen's Tower from when the Slitheen's/Space Pig's spaceship crashed into it in March 2006.

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 11:59 am

I'd say the Doctor changes history, he was certainly pissed of enough at the end to throw caution to the wind (after all, in the previosu episode he refused point blank to wipe out an attacking army, so killing a retreating one would'nt edear anyone to him...), and it's not as if the Time Lords are still about to punish him for it. It's possiable than Jones was actually suffering from some illness/stress disorder that originaly didn't become public knowledge untill after her three terms, which would explain how quickly the rumore spreads...

Incidently, as the episode mentions Harriet Jones has allready won an election... Would one automaticly be called in the event the Prime Minister dies? I'd have thought the deputy PM would have just stood up to bat.

Legion · Post by **Legion** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 3:18 pm

The Torchwood name dropping felt a bit uneasy to me, sure i can understand the need to set them up in the Whoniverse (not meaning to steal Bounce's name of anything

) but the references were a bit heavy handed.

Impy's right too, some of the acting is a bit hammy, but i think that's got a lot to do with RTD. Casanova, whilst a great serial, also had it's exceedingly hammy points.

Tennant was very good though, felt a bit over the top in places, like he was trying too hard, but hopefully he'll settle into the roll a bit more.

The teaser at the end was very exciting tho, the Cybermen! yay! If only we'd heard their voices, that's the linchpin for me as to whether or not they're going to be any good...

inflatable dalek wrote:Incidently, as the episode mentions Harriet Jones has allready won an election... Would one automaticly be called in the event the Prime Minister dies? I'd have thought the deputy PM would have just stood up to bat.

Wasn't the deputy prime minister the large chap who the slitheen were imitating? Been a while since i brought myself to watch those two eps...

Bouncelot · Post by **Bouncelot** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 6:37 pm

Legion wrote:Wasn't the deputy prime minister the large chap who the slitheen were imitating? Been a while since i brought myself to watch those two eps...

He was just the guy responsible for something really minor. The rest of the cabinet were said to be alive, but they apparently needed to be airlifted in before they could be in charge. (Yes, I know it doesn't make sense. Blame RTD).

And is it just me, or did the trailer put way too much emphasis on the return of Sarah Jane Smith and K9? OK, so it has nostalgia appeal to the kids of the Tom Baker era, but surely it can't be Series Two's biggest selling point. Can it?

Legion · Post by **Legion** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 6:57 pm

Bouncelot wrote:(Yes, I know it doesn't make sense. Blame RTD).

OK, thanks, i will!

Bouncelot wrote:And is it just me, or did the trailer put way too much emphasis on the return of Sarah Jane Smith and K9? OK, so it has nostalgia appeal to the kids of the Tom Baker era, but surely it can't be Series Two's biggest selling point. Can it?

Don't think there was too muych emphasis. the return of sjs will undoubtably catch the older fans interest but it might also make the younger viewers interested in the "who's she?" kind of way. the same with K9 really. they had the same amount of 'airtime' in the trailer, each had two snippets, same as queen vic and the cat people had i think. shame the Cybes only had the one clip, (unless the 'bullets won't work' line is their second).

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 9:07 pm

Bouncelot wrote: And is it just me, or did the trailer put way too much emphasis on the return of Sarah Jane Smith and K9? OK, so it has nostalgia appeal to the kids of the Tom Baker era, but surely it can't be Series Two's biggest selling point. Can it?

i suspect the emphasis on that episode in the trailer had as much to do with the presence of Tony Head (who'd be a bigger selling point to all the Little Britain devouring kids out there than poor ol K.9). Isn't it great how he can make a ordinary line like "May I introduce Sarah Jane Smith" sound like the greatest dialoug ever written.

The rest of the cabinet were said to be alive, but they apparently needed to be airlifted in before they could be in charge. (Yes, I know it doesn't make sense. Blame RTD).

Especialy as the cabinate would probably have been evacuated from London anyway if spaceships started crashing... They'd just have gone to one of the regional comand centers and took charge from there. Though who knows, maybee the Slitheen implimented changes in policy to prevent that?

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 12:20 pm

Legion wrote:The Torchwood name dropping felt a bit uneasy to me, sure i can understand the need to set them up in the Whoniverse (not meaning to steal Bounce's name of anything ) but the references were a bit heavy handed.

Anyone else spot the Torchwood reference in "Bad Wolf"?

I liked this - I showed it to an Aussie mate who hasn't seen Who since McCoy and he was totally stoked by it. It's refreshing to have a decent British show on TV for once.

Brendocon · Post by **Brendocon** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 12:34 pm

inflatable dalek wrote:Would one automaticly be called in the event the Prime Minister dies?

Don't think so.

Remember that Prime Minister isn't an elected position - it goes to whoever the leader of the governing party is. If the PM died there'd be a by-election for the affected constituency, but the leadership (and hence PM) would be determined internally by the party.

Bouncelot · Post by **Bouncelot** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 6:16 pm

Brendocon wrote:
inflatable dalek wrote:Would one automaticly be called in the event the Prime Minister dies?
Don't think so.

Remember that Prime Minister isn't an elected position - it goes to whoever the leader of the governing party is. If the PM died there'd be a by-election for the affected constituency, but the leadership (and hence PM) would be determined internally by the party.

Indeed, hence how John Major ousted Margaret Thatcher from the top job without an election. However, if the government fell apart and could no longer command a majority in the House of Commons, then there would almost certainly be an election soon afterwards.

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 2:20 pm

Incidently, does anyone find it odd that such a lowely MP was the highest ranking member of the government with enough girth to hide a Slitheen? Considering the PM is clearly ment to be Blair, you have to wonder what happened to Two Jags, or even Brown...

Oh, and bits of The Christmas Invasion were filmed in a quarry! Horah!