Bumblemus watches Doctor Who now. Doctor Who is cool.

[inflatable dalek]

But if we don't get a Hurt/Eccles regeneration scene in the anniversary special, then we're back at square one.

In the tie-in interview he did to promote the minisode the Moff did mention his anal OCD means he really wants to tick off the checklist of "All" the regenerations...

And this special does show they could do it quite easily without Eccles actually taking part in new footage (which would actually be a nice bit of symmetry with the Parting of the Ways regeneration as, IIRC, everything after the Doctor throws his arms back is actually Tennant covered with lots of light and a bit of CGI trickery for the morph).

I really liked this, short and pacey and considering the short run time did more than I'd have expected to run the 8th Doctor through the gauntlet of what he's capable of. Very nice.

[Professor Smooth]

Every episode...Every episode is touching and awesome and funny and wonderful!

[Bumblebot]

An Adventure in Space and Time. Very well done.

[spiderfrommars]

Indeed. I had a feeling it would be good, but that was ******* terrific.

[Sunyavadin]

And this special does show they could do it quite easily without Eccles actually taking part in new footage (which would actually be a nice bit of symmetry with the Parting of the Ways regeneration as, IIRC, everything after the Doctor throws his arms back is actually Tennant covered with lots of light and a bit of CGI trickery for the morph).

Would be far from the first time. Remember when Sylvester McCoy in a curly blonde wig regenerated into Sylvester McCoy?

[inflatable dalek]

And Colin was having great fun with that when I saw the "Old Doctor Who" panel at the Celebration, ribbing Sylvester that as he never actually did a regeneration everyone after him doesn't count (he also got a fun dig in at The Hobbit, "I hear they're doing a film for each page").

In even more exciting news, I got so close to Jenna Coleman she was a little tiny blob on a stage under a giant TV with her face on.

I touched a Yeti as well, which was nice.


I've now seen an Adventure, and it was lovely. Really lovely and emotional stuff that pretty much perfectly captured Hartnell. There was a lot of fudging to compress things and make Labert and Hussein the main focus of things as much as possible for two people who weren't there for all of Hartnell's time on the show (in particular Hussein almost certainly wasn't hanging around the production office between his two stories), but most of it worked fine in the tradition of dramatic licence.

The only out and out real cheat I thought was the recording of the last scene of The Massacre being presented as an out and out disaster when John Willis (probably the most noticeable absentee as he was almost tailor made to be Hartnell's nemesis in this as he was the one who spent the best part of a year trying to get shot of the lead actor) used the "Butter up Bill by going on about how brilliant an actor he is and how the speech has been especially written for him" trick the drama has Sydney Newman do much earlier to ensure a word perfect take that even impressed Willis.

Of course, you'd have to be a really, really, anal worthless human being to point out every single little ickle historical inaccuracy in the show.


So here's some of the one's I spotted:


The Tardis is treated as a standing set, when it was took down after every use and not put up for episodes it wasn't in (so it wasn't in studio for episode 2 of the Daleks for example). I think they kept it the same for the entire drama as well when the size shrunk and the walls and props moved about hugely over the three years.

Cavemen plural wandering about the studio session of the first episode when there's only one in it and his looming shadow was one of things recorded on film weeks before.

"Exterminate" treated as a catchphrase right from the off when the closes in their first story is a couple of Exterminations.

The recording of the first Dalek story is treated as happening after Kennedy was assassinated when the first episode was being made the day he shot (and therefore it was too late in the process for Newman to make a fuss about it, all those arguments happened weeks before).

There was a gap of months between The Web Planet and Lambert's departure, so certainly no Menoptra at her leaving do (which did have delegates from Mission to the Unknown at it though, that's the only reason we have photos of them).

I think they were playing up the affects of Hartnell's illness during this bit as well by picking his worst scene in it and ignoring the fact none of the other regulars were very on song that week.

[I was also under the impression Hartnell wasn't formally diagnosed until after he left Who, but I'm not entirely sure of that one]

Jackie Lane and Peter Purves didn't join the show at the same time and wouldn't have had a joint press conference, she also wouldn't have been wearing her Celestial Toymaker costume. Lane's actual press announcement had her being grabbed by the Monoids, that would have been awesome to see here.

Getting Chesterton's name wrong was a deliberate running joke (albeit one that might have started as a result of a slip) rather than a massive recurring cock up, as said the Massacre speech was actually word perfect.

Penfield was long gone by the time Hartnell's departure happened and wouldn't have been going on about that to Newman. And it was actually the producer of the show (Innes Lloyd by that point) who handled the decision and told Hartnell.

Troughton almost certainly wasn't in costume when he filmed the regeneration, and his hair definitely wasn't decided on (the change is shot in extremely tight close up on the face to get around the fact they were still debating the blond Harpo Marx wig at that point).

Matt Smith wasn't there. That's a huge one that is, I don't know how that slipped through.

There may be others, but I'm not that anal.

[Brendocon]

Dodgy CGI face-replacement aside (though that may have been the 3D) that was ******* ace.

Grinning like a loon. I even didn't mind the teenage girl sat behind me who insisted on pointing out what was happening for no real reason.

Also points for one of the plots being built around a stupid throwaway RTD line. And I mean that sincerely. Yayage.

[Bumblebot]

Day of the Fish Doctor was fun!

[Professor Smooth]

That lived up to the hype quite well!

[Best First]

i loved it. watched twice already. don't think there was much that could have been better bar Eccles not being a party pooper.

[Professor Smooth]

i loved it. watched twice already. don't think there was much that could have been better bar Eccles not being a party pooper.

Maybe he'll be the debatebly inexplicable cameo in the 100th anniversary special? And be shown in stock footage in the the parody "The Day(ish) of the Doctor".

[Shanti418]

Yeah, that was all kinds of cool. And speaking as someone who didn't give two craps about the Doctor prior to the 21st century reboot (but who has attempted to soak up as much as possible since then), I was surprised by how emotionally touched I was by it: Don't worry, Doctor John Hurt, you're not alone! All the Doctors together like out of Yesterday's Enterprise? TOM BAKER???? I was bawling like a baby.

[inflatable dalek]

My especially long winded thoughts, but in short it's a good'un:


http://thesolarpool.weebly.com/1/post/2 ... s-day.html

[Professor Smooth]

Loved the review!

One thing, though. Are you sure that the Hurt Doctor said "ears"? I thought the Doctor said that hoped that this time the YEARS would be less conspicuous, meaning that he'd like to be a bit younger.

[Brendocon]

He said ears.

"Ah... Could have been worse. But look at the ears..." was, according to IMDB (so the exact dialogue could be different) Ecclescake's line upon first seeing himself in a mirror.

[Best First]

My especially long winded thoughts, but in short it's a good'un:


http://thesolarpool.weebly.com/1/post/2 ... s-day.html

i disagree that Coleman didn't have much to do - her role wasn't massive but the character's contribution to what finally transpired was signficiant. Withour Clare there the button could well have been pressed.

[spiderfrommars]

Considering all the things this episode had to do it was downright wonderful. There was one point in the cinema, during the Dalek attack on Arcadia, that I turned to my friend and said "This is better than Star Wars."

I stand by that. Certainly better than anything SW has done since '83.

And what Tom Baker did with a very short scene was so, so wonderful.

It's the kind of episode than in no way will ever please everyone, but has enough in it to give each viewer, at least at some point, a very warm glow.

A few things:

1) I'm not going to enjoy fans endlessly debating whether we should renumber all the Doctors following McGann.

2) The 1970s Zygons sort of look better than the modern day ones.

3) I still prefer Smith to Tennant, but David certainly brought back the Tenth Doctor with so much joie de vivre, that it seemed like he'd never been away.

4) This was great in 3D. I took a scarf and a sonic with me to the screening. Would have been churlish not to.

5) The Elizabeth I plotline that has been left hanging for six years is finally resolved.

6) That One Direction satellite link up on the after party on BBC Three was so cringe worthy I chewed off one of my fingers.

7) THOSE EYES!

[Professor Smooth]

You know...

We didn't actually *see* Hurt regenerate INTO Eccelston. Perhaps the guys we thought were the 9th, 10th, and 11th Doctors...weren't. Which would mean that maybe the "all 13th" Doctor is actually the 10th.

[Brendocon]

There was an overlay of Ecclescake's face wasn't there? In a cutaway-before-it-sets way.

ANYHOW:

Chrimblemas special now has a title!
http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/doctor-who/ ... irst-image

THE FORMULAIC TITLE OF THE DOCTOR!

Ahem. I mean Time. Time. The keys are right next to each other.

[inflatable dalek]

Whilst checking the ears line I noticed the Seventh Doctor is actually there twice, season 24/25 version and the TV Movie one. So despite what the Chancellory Guard say we have 14 different Doctors in orbit around Gallifrey and proof that it's not that Time Lords can't have more than 13 bodies, it's just they have a bit of trouble counting higher than that.

I was actually amazed this last night when reading the papers in the canteen at work from the day before to see several of them reporting on the Moff's "Matt Smith is the last Doctor and there is no cheat coming" style comments as if none of them had noticed that the special ended with proof that the Doctor does have a future (where he seems to become popular Great British Eccentric Tom Baker). Them not remebering every single example of how the rule can be cheated is fair enough, but this was only two days before. That 13 thing really is ingrained in the British consciousness isn't it?

Mind, the show did play fair with John Hurt and the promise the special was going to change the nature of the show (even if he never finds Gallifrey we're still going to be spared ever having another staring off into the middle distance "I watched it all BURN!" speech), so we could be coming up to an incredibly clever twist.

1) I'm not going to enjoy fans endlessly debating whether we should renumber all the Doctors following McGann.

I wonder if people will go with the Moff's stated intent that how we refer to them by number is an outside of the fiction thing that has no relation to how the character thinks of himself (so the Matt Smith one just regards himself as The Doctor rather than the 11th 12th or 13th Doctor) so we don't need to change anything and should just call Hurt the War Doctor when we need something to tell one from the other.

2) The 1970s Zygons sort of look better than the modern day ones.[/quote]

I thought the costume worked, but the bit of tech we saw decidedly less impressive than all the lovely squidgley phallic stuff Tom Baker had so much fun squeezing.

[bumblemusprime]

Loved it.

Can't figure out what else to say. Just loved loved loved it. Once again, all internal consistency doesn't matter much. "Thirteen TARDISes can do what a planetful of Time Lords can't!" Ah well. John Hurt won me over immediately as the sekrit Doctor. I love the comments about age, etc.

I really thought they would all blob together into Capaldi at the end. I'm not sure how that has any consistency at all, but for some reason I was surprised. I guess Capaldi will be here in time for Christmas.

[Brendocon]

[quote="bumblemusprime"Once again, all internal consistency doesn't matter much. "Thirteen TARDISes can do what a planetful of Time Lords can't!"[/quote]

More a case of one TARDIS/Doctor/Screwdriver with the capability of running ~1000 years of computations instantaneously.

John Hurt won me over immediately as the sekrit Doctor. I love the comments about age, etc.

The "why are you so afraid to admit you're an old man" bit was great. And leads in nicely into the character's next iteration.

"Timey wimey?"
"I have no idea where he picks this stuff up from."

[inflatable dalek]

So... who'd have thought 12 months ago that 2013 would see Paul McGann get a better regeneration episode than Matt Smith?

Thought that was a bit of a mess myself, and hardly seemed to come from the same writer who managed to pull off Day of the Doctor (though sadly it did seem credible as being from the writer who oversaw the rest of this year's episodes). Indeed, the "Hey, remember that thing that was actually a fairly major plot point years ago we never bothered to explain and then totally forgot about for just long enough for you to loose any lingering interest even as a mad super fan? Well lets explain it now via dull exposition!" stuff felt like John Barber had escaped into the script.

And the Time Lords had the means of giving one of their own a new regeneration cycle in such a way a side effect was enough destructive force to destroy bugger-loads of Daleks and their ships (not to mention a medium sized town. But oddly not most of the inhabitants) but still managed to come that close to loosing the Time War?


Good bits...

The Priest Woman not being revealed to be some form of River Song despite the flirting and Tardis flying seeming to signpost it heavily.

No Tellytuby Daleks. If they're not even going to wheel them out to pad out Dalek crowd scenes anymore I think that's got to be the final nail in the coffin for that design misstep.

The actual rapid-fire regeneration, short, sharp shocking and fresh in a way most of the rest of the episode wasn't.

[spiderfrommars]

I have to admit to being distracted by the wig for most of it.

Mainly I have the similar feeling I had after watching The End of Time. An entertaining spectacle, yes, but I didn't totally connect with it.

It might be because I'm dense but I had to really concentrate to understand the dynamics and motivations of the three-way stand off on the planet. Time I would have rather spent marvelling at wooden cybermen, good old Handles, and freaky Silence.

Regeneration stories must be a bitch to get right. The Caves of Androzani and The Parting of the Ways show it can be done, but the last two have wobbled a bit under the weight of expectation.

But I really liked how Smith's Doctor embraced his end in a way, as opposed to Tennant's who tried his best to hang on to his body. Smith's last scene, when he was on the verge of tears, doing his usual wonderful flappy arm thing and saying "you've got to keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be", was really quite wonderful.

No Tellytuby Daleks. If they're not even going to wheel them out to pad out Dalek crowd scenes anymore I think that's got to be the final nail in the coffin for that design misstep.

Pretty sure that was the voice of one of them coming from the ship.

The new Daleks are great when used properly. The stone Dalek in The Big Bang, or the leader in Asylum of the Daleks. I think it works best when we have both, for instance in Planet of the Daleks when the leader is a bigger bastard Dalek than the others.

The actual rapid-fire regeneration, short, sharp shocking and fresh in a way most of the rest of the episode wasn't.

That was brilliant, I did not expect that all.

[Bumblebot]

So, who's wondering how the Doctor will get his next cycle of regenerations, when his 25th incarnation is getting old, and the series'll have just had its 100th anniversary?

The actual rapid-fire regeneration, short, sharp shocking and fresh in a way most of the rest of the episode wasn't.

That was brilliant, I did not expect that all.

It kind of makes sense. The intensity of the regeneration & recovery period seem to be proportional to the damage to the Time Lord. For example, Eccleston & Tennant both had major cellular damage due to radiation, so theirs were environmentally destructive, whereas Smith was just suffering from old age, much like Hartnell, and so his was subdued.

[Darth Aux]

we recorded the Christmas episode and the recorder stopped before the end, despite having a 15 minute buffer. =(

[Optimus Prime Rib]

Cried at his speech about "I will always remember when the doctor was me."
Cried more when I remembered the first thing you have to know about the doctor.
- The Doctor Lies.

[Professor Smooth]

I loved the Time of the Doctor...and guess what...I'll tell you why!

I liked that they hand-waved away the fact that this was the Doctor's final life. Basically saying "just because I didn't call myself the Doctor and channeled the extra energy away once doesn't mean it didn't COUNT...DUH!" Because, you know, *of course* it counts! What kind of cop-out would THAT be in the future? "I'll regenerate enough to save myself...and then use the extra energy to (power the Tardis, help my companion, etc, etc).

While David Tennant remains my favorite Doctor (I started with Eccles), I *really* bought Matt Smith as a guy who was an old guy in a young guy's body in a way that I didn't with the previous two Doctors.

I freaking LOVED how quickly the change from Mr. Smith to Mr. Capaldi happened. Everybody has known since June that Peter Capaldi will be the next Doctor. So doing it in a split second was a brilliant way to make it a surprise. As opposed to having the regeneration flames subside to reveal...the face that we all knew would be waiting for us.

Matt Smith's speech at the end was heart wrenching. Even though, as has been said, we know that...the Doctor lies. And his first words seem to confirm that. Has the new Doctor forgotten so much? Or is this just a quick "brain freeze" after an abnormal regeneration?

I'm excited! And I'm greatly looking forward to "catching up" on the last 50 years of Doctor Who during the next 8 months. My uncle speaks highly of this Tom Baker fellow. Perhaps I'll give him a try.

[inflatable dalek]

Tom is still by a considerable margin the most iconic, and one of those actors who must really annoy those who spend hours honing their every performance to the finest detail because he pretty much just plays every scene how he was feeling at the time, only ever read the bits of the script with him in and was often nine sheets to the wind.

And is still never less than almost hypnotically watchable.