Bumblemus watches Doctor Who now. Doctor Who is cool.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Thu Nov 29, 2012 11:32 am

I heart Vincent and the Doctor.

(written by Richard Curtis fact fans, of Blackadder, Four Weddings and Love Actually fame)

Brendocon · Post by **Brendocon** » Thu Nov 29, 2012 11:47 am

I'm a grumpy bastard.

It was blind because it's invisible. Should have been the twist. Hello science where did you go, you were there in Face of Evil or whichever thing it was with Tom where the invisible things were blind.

I liked the "if you've been affected by any of the issues in this episode" thing that followed it on the Beeb, though. Chased by invisible dinosaurs haha et cetera I suck.

Making him Scottish was good.

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Thu Nov 29, 2012 3:36 pm

It's probably the first thing in twenty years that Richard Curtis has done which didn't make me want to go punch a small child. So it's an upward swing really.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Sun Dec 02, 2012 10:18 pm

Went up through Season 5. Rather loved it. Moffat's a tidier and more imaginative writer than Davies, and seems less obsessed with reliving the glory moments of the Who mythos as with adding new business. Particularly liked the way the Doctor speaking to Amy in the Weeping Angels maze was the final episode's Doctor traveling backward. Spoilers!

In episode 2 of season 6 now. Boy, this is everything the X-Files wished it ever was, innit??

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Thu Dec 06, 2012 10:14 pm

The first two eps of season 6 are amongst my fave DW ever. The American settings really add to the epicness, and The Silence are a masterstroke.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Tue Dec 18, 2012 6:16 am

Rory is a career damsel in distress, ain't he?

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Tue Dec 18, 2012 7:59 am

While finishing up work stuff tonight, I made it through the 'gangers episodes and A Good Man Goes To War, featuring River's big (BIG) reveal. Unfortunately it had been spoiled already for me somewhere along the line, but still pretty cool, although there's no way to put a baby in danger and not have me freak out.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 7:20 pm

Went up through Wedding of River Song. Great episode. My favorite time-destroying dilemma of the series thus far. And also predicts an interesting future.

I'm loving the 11-Pond-Moffat run so much that I'm writing future seasons in my head. I picture an evil Twelfth Doctor, a madness unleashed from deep within the subconscious, sown in the Time War, fought by an 11 and 13th Doctor in a paradox of paradoxes.

River": like the way we don't see much of the snogging or malarkey between 11 and River Song. I like River, despite her grating manner, but she's got no chemistry with Matt Smith, really. So if the River romance is officially off with the departure of the Ponds--11 and River have River's first shenanigans, 11's last--I won't miss her too much. Her episode with 10 is one of my favorites from 10-Donna era, and she's been a fantastic plot device.

Have seen Asylum of Daleks--holy crap, great episode even if the Daleks were never a credible threat in the whole damn thing--and now halfway through Dinosaurs On A Spaceship. Boy, Rory and Amy fixed a divorce quickly, eh? Loving Rory's dad.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 11:27 am

I loved Asylum.

I'm rewatching the Tennant run with my girlfriend (I'm trying to win her over from the Dark Side ie. Star Trek) and it's really brought home what the RTD era did better, and what it did worse.

On the whole the stories are more patchy (series 3 isn't as good as I remember and Doc10 and Martha's chemistry hardly sears the screen) but the threats are much more relatable, often in the here and now, and there are a lot more identifiable everyman characters.

Sometimes I feel Moffat has gone too far the other way (the latest Christmas episode was more fan pleasing than crowd pleasing) but it looks and feels so much more epic, and Doc 11 is still my fave modern iteration of the character.

Brendocon · Post by **Brendocon** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 8:12 pm

bumblemusprime wrote:Boy, Rory and Amy fixed a divorce quickly, eh? Loving Rory's dad.

LOTS of time passes in between the Doctor dropping them off and picking them up again each time.

Though obviously never enough for either of them to have noticeably aged. That would be silly.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Sat Jan 05, 2013 6:59 pm

Have now watched all the way up through Angels in Manhattan...

Digression: the Year of the Slow Invasion, or whatever it was called, was a real quality episode. I like the fact that Rory and Amy enjoy normal life, just enough, and enjoy having jobs and normal things...

So their inevitable departure, I was sure, would have something to do with that! I thought I had it called, actually: Amy would magically get her uterus cured, and they would decide that they had to cut the Doctor off lest the baby be endangered again. Or they would just decide they liked being shlubs. In fact, that could have followed well off the Angels episodes. "Okay, Doctor, we have now, on top or forgetting, guarding for two thousand years, melting in front of the other, losing our baby, committed suicide together... this is enough. Come round for dinner sometime, but we're done TARDISing."

but NO.

They were exiled to (GASP) 1938.

Now the problem with Who is that there really aren't plotholes when your main character can see all of space and time and do just about anything. But at least the Davies companion cutoffs appeared to be insurmountable problems. Alternate reality walls all breachey and leaky if you go get Rose? Okay, I can kinda buy that. It's not this universe's space and time. Donna will go mad if she remembers TimeLordiness? Makes sense. It's not the end of the world, just one person, and we like Donna, so just let her be mediocre.

But... there's too much wibbly wobbly timey wimey for the Doctor to ever get Amy and Rory from 1938?

He can't pick them up somewhere else, ten years later?

He can't try River's vortex manipulator, which has, in this episode, already worked in the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey.

Anything is possible, until you say it's not, and if the audience doesn't buy that it's not possible... well, we just said it's not.

Bah.

Brendocon · Post by **Brendocon** » Sat Jan 05, 2013 9:34 pm

The Power of Three (for that is its name) could have done without the portentious narration, but other than that I remember liking it yes.

The problem with the Angels ep is that there's so many things in it to call ******** on that it's really hard to know where to start.

Was the Statue of Liberty always an angel? Or was it turned into one? Is it still an angel now? How the [composite word including 'f*ck'] does it get across the city and back on a regular basis, making that amount of noise, without passing a single being's field of vision? And what about that thing where there are no pictures of angels because every image of an angel is an angel itself? There's [composite word including 'f*ck'] of pictures of the statue of liberty?

It's like when Amy wanders around holding her younger self's hand without time collapsing like when Rose touched herself (ooh er). Though arguably time was already collapsing at the time, but you know what I mean. They establish all these rules, then just ignore them because... well, because observing them would get in the way of the story.

But beyond that... yeah. Let's be honest, the Doctor doesn't even know for certain where/when they've been zapped back to. Only that they eventually die and are buried in that cemetery (with no date on the gravestone, I should mention). They could have gone and spent thirty years in Paris before moving back to the States, FFS.

The audience are just meant to accept that the Doctor accepts that, because he knows they eventually die, that's it. Game over. No point trying. Never going to see them again. So it's self-fulfilling. And ridiculous. Yeah, it tugs hard at the heartstrings... but... it... makes... no... sense.

That said, I'm quite possibly in love with Jenna Louise Coleman. Amy who?

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Sun Jan 06, 2013 7:05 am

Yeah. Yeah! I mean, I guess we needed the Doctor morose and self-serving in order for the plot of the Christmas episode to work... except no, wait, he did what he always does... We could have just had Amy and Rory figure out some reason why they had to go bugger off and leave him.

Or something.

Christmas episode was pretty good, though. The mystery of Clara Oswin Whatserface Amy Who? promises to make for good rest of season.

Preview for season 7.5

http://doctorwhotv.co.uk/series-7-part- ... -43268.htm

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Sun Jan 06, 2013 4:48 pm

Also, for those of us who never got Classic Who, how's this for accuracy?

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/07/how-to ... doctor-who

Shanti418 · Post by **Shanti418** » Mon Jan 07, 2013 7:06 pm

Yeah, the Christmas episode was pretty sweet. Clara is quite adorable. And by adorable, I mean many a thing I darenot say here. :P And her mystery is intriguing, but I hope her mystery is a mystery to herself. That is to say, I'm not looking for another "I'm constantly three steps ahead of the Doctor" River Song-esque character. It does seem - from the Smith-face opening to the "it's smaller on the outside" - that Moffat is looking to tweak, nod to, and interact with Who history moreso than in his prior seasons.

And is that whole Doctor's crew going to stick around for the rest of the season? Were they placeholders, or is this a Skyfall-ish "Let's give the Doctor a team to play off of" type thing? Because they were also equally awesome.

Brendocon · Post by **Brendocon** » Mon Jan 07, 2013 7:41 pm

They're all recurring from previous episodes, so it wouldn't surprise me if we see those other characters again. But not as regulars.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Mon Jan 07, 2013 7:58 pm

Shanti418 wrote:And by adorable, I mean many a thing I darenot say here. :P

The wife was looking over my shoulder while I was making the last post, so I didn't go into detail regarding the squishy feeling I get when I look at Clara.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Tue Jan 08, 2013 4:50 pm

bumblemusprime wrote:Also, for those of us who never got Classic Who, how's this for accuracy?

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/07/how-to ... doctor-who

I'd go with 6) Watch particularly good eps out of order .

Of course, you could ask us what are the good eps but everyone will give you a different answer. This is a decent list though: http://www.combom.co.uk/2009/09/dwm-mig ... 1-050.html

In 2009 Doctor Who Magazine readers voted on their fave stories and that's the top 50.

It's a good start, and you only need to watch a few of those to get used to the style and pacing. After that, just dive in anywhere. The stories are quite often self-contained with few ongoing major arcs (the main exception is The Key to Time season).

Brendocon · Post by **Brendocon** » Tue Jan 08, 2013 6:09 pm

Yep. 6 is the way I recommend.

Pick out a handful of stories, a mix of different Doctors if you can. Try to avoid anything longer than four episodes to start with. Watch them in any order, get a feel for the vibe... then launch from there. Either stuff with the same Doctor/Companion or the same guest monster, whatever.

It's a bit like trying to find an entry point for Marvel or DC (or, y'know, comics in general). There isn't one that works for everybody. You pick something up, see if you like it. If you don't, you pick something else up... until you find something that works, track the character or author... then work your way back to the ones you didn't like to see if they work better once you've done the other stuff. Some of them will, some of them won't.

There's superb stuff, there's some dross. What some people think is awful, others may love. You won't know which is which until you've seen it. But whatever your preferences for story-type/production style/actors, there's enough gold in there to make it worth the time.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Sun Feb 10, 2013 7:03 pm

History of the Doctor as played by ladies:

http://www.scifind.com/features/the-other-11-doctors/

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Mon Feb 11, 2013 10:22 pm

I don't have a real problem with any of those except maybe the last one or two. Maybe just the last one, actually. I'd have to think about it. I just don't think Miranda Hart's a Matt Smith and I don't think I've seen Sue Perkins play anyone other than Sue Perkins, so I don't know if she'd be a Tennant or not.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Tue Feb 12, 2013 2:09 am

6th Doctor-Miriam Margoyles. Heh.

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Tue Feb 12, 2013 10:55 am

spiderfrommars wrote:6th Doctor-Miriam Margoyles. Heh.

I'd already provisionally called her "Bernard" in my head.

Aaron Hong · Post by **Aaron Hong** » Sun Feb 24, 2013 2:07 pm

They had the Matt Smith series on Singapore tv before I found out. At least it was just up to Time of Angels. Also I've been checking out the David Tennant run on occasion. I'm not waving the remote at my car door yet tho.

Post by **snarl** » Wed Apr 03, 2013 9:56 am

I really liked the new episode. pretty good special effects for a tea time show.

Sidekick is a honey.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Tue Apr 09, 2013 6:36 am

Bells of St. John: Couldn't ask for more from a Whopisode, and Clara meeting the Doctor has not yet gotten old. Mysterious villain harvesting human souls who knows who the Doctor is even though he retconned himself... hm.

Rings of Akhaten: Bit too much portentous speechmaking. Lovely to see Clara's parents, though.

Brendocon · Post by **Brendocon** » Tue Apr 09, 2013 8:20 am

bumblemusprime wrote:Mysterious villain [...] ... hm.

The Great Intelligence. Returning from the Christmas special. As featured in several Troughton stories.

Akhaten was a bit iffy. Could have done with some clarification regarding the atmosphere in the area.

Post by **snarl** » Tue Apr 09, 2013 9:57 am

That second one was gash.

I think quite a lot of the alien world ones are.

Optimus Prime Rib · Post by **Optimus Prime Rib** » Tue Apr 09, 2013 5:01 pm

I liked it if for no other reason than that I enjoy when The Doctor shows genuine frustration and anger. Same thing with the Pandorica. "Who wants to go second, because you all what's going to happen to whoever goes first."

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Thu Apr 11, 2013 9:37 am

Loved all the aliens in the second episode. Felt there must have been 50+!

The first half of the episode had a really unique feel. I thought we were on the verge of an out and out classic as the Doctor and Clara sat in the auditorium. But the second half was really drawn out and repetitive unfortunately.

The Bells of St John was a lot of fun though, flashy and funny.

I'm not all that invested in the mystery of Clara though.