Doctor Who

[simpledumbpilot]

I can't get over how cool this show is; and this season has been awesome so far...their best yet!

You are Russell T Davies and I claim my 5 pounds!

[apc]

[oz1701]

I thought you didn't like Donna/Tate! It was absolutely her episode.

she got hit by a lorry.

noooooooooo!!!!!!!

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noooooooooo!!!!!!!

Don't worry, old fellow. It was merely an alternative reality in which she'd never met the Doctor. They used a nice deus ex machina to get out of it!

[oz1701]

noooooooooo!!!!!!!

Don't worry, old fellow. It was merely an alternative reality in which she'd never met the Doctor. They used a nice deus ex machina to get out of it!

was it a Volkswagen beetle - everyone seems to think the beetle was rubbish?

[black bobble]

wow - I thought it was going to be shit - but it was great - even with all the plot holes

can't wait until next week

[oz1701]

wow - I thought it was going to be shit - but it was great - even with all the pot holes

can't wait until next week

we are still waiting for the new season in australia

[Sordel]

I'll third the Empty Child / The Doctor Dances story, absolutely brilliant. The other one I would recommend is Blink, I never did the hiding behind the sofa thing as a kid, instead I sat glued to the telly (cruel parents! LOL), but finally at 33 years old Dr Who freaked me out! Its possibly my favourite piece of TV this decade (and it still freaks me out watching it for the umpteenth time)!

Yep, this seems to be "received thinking" on the return of Doctor Who: all the best episodes are Moffat-penned. I especially liked the one about the Madame de Pompadour as well, which I think was another one of his. "Blink" is a classic ... and I must confess that I teared up at the end of the Silent Library two-parter.

As for this triple-episode closer for the Rusty Davies era ... I've just watched "The Stolen Earth" and I'm not overwhelmingly convinced. He seems to be trying to leave Moffat a target to aim at, but all the franchise tie-in references are getting in the way of the actual plot, I'd say.

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For oz's benefit, this is definitely going to feature spoilers, so you might not want to read ahead!

Turn Left/The Stolen Earth/Journey's End it is not the end of RTD's era because he is writing all five of the special episodes that are going to be broadcast next year.

I do love Moffat but I found The Forest of the Dead quite disappointing. I never really empathised with River Song and found Donna's plot far more interesting than the Doctor's. The way that he wrote out the shadows (sorry, cannot remember what they were called) was a dreadful deus ex machina; what is frightening about something that can kill everyone in the room with ease but decide to give a useless ultimatum instead? If the Doctor really was good enough to intimidate them without bluffing, the episode would have ended much sooner!

I think that people give far too much blame to Russell for the show's faults (or what they see as faults, at least). The majority on Outpost Gallifrey and the like seem to be under the impression that the show is going to go through a massive overhaul when Moffat takes over, but I highly doubt that will happen since the extreme popularity of the show owes a hell of a lot to Russell's successful formula. He is seen as better than Russell simply because of the consistency of his good episodes - what is ignored is the fact that he still hasn't written even half as many episodes of him, but I am 100% certain that along with becoming the new head writer, he will also take on the role of being the fans' scapegoat for all things that are 'wrong' with the show from 2010 onwards. He is an excellent writer, but so is Russell T. Davies. If you don't believe me on that one, just watch Midnight again. I think it is better than all of Moffat's episodes except for The Girl in the Fireplace and The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances; people are not measuring quantity fairly, in my opinion. I'd also recommend The Second Coming, which is a brilliant film he wrote which stars Christopher Eccleston as the son of God.

However, I just want to make it clear that I'm not doubting Moffat at all! I think he is a fantastic writer and has a lot of potential. The show is definitely still in safe hands because he did a great job with 'Jekyll', but that was written on a much smaller scale than Doctor Who and there was less pressure since it was never going to gather quite as many viewers. I personally hope that Russell T. Davies does write some one-off episodes after giving up the head writer position because he has more than proved his worth when he is focused. I'm also looking forward to seeing how people react when he leaves and the show continues to feature homosexual characters! The 'gay agenda'. What a farce.

Apparently Noel Clarke mentioned that Mickey will become a full time companion in the next series in some dubious newspaper interview, but I'm still waiting for a link before I can even begin to trust it. It would be interesting but I still think he's going to be joining Torchwood in the next series. He seems far too busy with his own projects to commit that much time to filming Docor Who, since his latest film ('Adulthood', which he wrote, directed and starred in) is proving to be quite successful.

[oz1701]

YAY! they finally aired the christmas episode with kylie minnow in it a lot of people die in that episode dont they - but at least the queen escapes with her corgies.

and next week they start the series proper - and about time too!!

mind you it was so well publicised my mother had to ring me to tell me it was on

im not surprised Russell's episodes have slipped - he is carrying most of the load after all.

whats this gay agenda thing?

that's pretty old news isn't it - heck the new series of dr who has people of colour in it too and no one has really commented on that- have a look at the old series - i think there is a thug in tomb of the cybermen and a robot in a later story and that's it.

as long as they don't camp it up i don't really care anyway - a good story is a good story regardless of the sexual orientation of the characters.

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It's a shame the vast majority of deaths in series four have been cop outs. They always seem to use something to make sure they are still alive in some way, which really undermines the concept of death in my eyes! Oh well.

The 'gay agenda' is basically an idea created by a bunch of idiots who watch Doctor Who solely for the purpose of going onto internet forums so they can whinge all about why it would be much better if there was a Bertie Bassett style monster and sets made of cardboard rather than three dimensional characters and more dialogue than action. They like to point out that Russell T. Davies is somehow ruining children's minds by showing them that homosexuality should be accepted through the use of gay characters. Personally, I find Paul Cornell's straight agenda just as offensive!

[Sordel]

as long as they don't camp it up i don't really care anyway - a good story is a good story regardless of the sexual orientation of the characters.

Well, this is the bone of contention for me. I gave up watching Torchwood for two reasons: in the first place, whatever the sexual orientation of the characters they were unsympathetic but; secondly, Captain Jack had become a preening "queen" whose sexuality seemed to be too much the driving force behind the narrative. Davies (who rose to prominence with Queer As Folk, in case any overseas readers here don't know that) may have intended to provide positive, integrated images of homosexuals, but to me they read as very alienating stereotypes. The only positive image of a gay woman (the Asian actress) turned out to be bi- when it suited the plot.

I don't think that Doctor Who has ever been affected as deeply, but some people sensitised to the issue by Torchwood chose to question a recent episode where it seemed to be fairly gratuitously flagged that a character was a lesbian. It's no big deal, but I think that a lot of sci-fi fans have been looking for an excuse to attack Rusty for pushing a social agenda.

As for his general abilities as a writer, I find Davies to be very poor: too given to using cheap comedy; too dependent on the Earth as an environment; and too fond of "cute" satire. He tends to tun Doctor Who into a romp rather than focusing on the horror, which is what kept generations of British children behind the sofa in the first place. Moffat has always been stronger on that side of things, but then I've been a Moffat fan since Joking Apart.

[Massed Gadgets]

I've never personally understood the backlash against Russell T. Davies, myself. Without him, we wouldn't have had this new Doctor Who revival. Many of the episodes he's written, I've enjoyed, some I haven't enjoyed as much. No one's perfect. I do happen to like the way he injects humour into his stories, for me it makes for a nice balance between the more intense and scary episodes, and I think this works better in the context of a weekly episodic format than it would have in the serial format of the classic series. Moffatt is of course a cracking good writer too and comes up with some fantastic concepts, though I agree with Roger on Forest of the Dead, it was a somewhat disappointing follow up to Silence in the Library. <SPOILERS> I too didn't really connect with Dr. River Song. Her character was an interesting concept but it just didn't quite work. Maybe it was the actress they chose, I don't really know. Although, when she whispered in the Doctor's ear and got that reaction from him, I knew immediately what she had said. <END OF SPOILERS>.

Back to Davies...I'm not sure why people think when a gay person writes about gay or bisexual themes they necessarily have an "agenda" like they are trying to convert people or something. I did laugh a little while watching series one of Torchwood because the bisexuality was so apparent (every single main character is or has some kind of experience that is bisexual!) it seemed a little anomolous, but it didn't bother me. Any writer will tend to explore the themes they are interested in within their writing. If Davies was interested in, say, organized crime or the relationship between reality and fiction, for examples, and explored those a lot in his writing, would people be as upset? I don't think so.

I haven't seen the second series of Torchwood yet, so I can't comment on it, but in the first series, I know, a lot of the characters were on the unlikeable side, but they were all intriguing. There were many shades of grey to their personalities. And even the most unlikeable and unsympathetic ones had sympathetic moments that emerged. I found it all quite refreshing to the usual one dimensional (I'm nice so I'm a good guy, I'm not nice so I'm a bad guy) characters found in so much television.

[Sordel]

I'm not sure why people think when a gay person writes about gay or bisexual themes they necessarily have an "agenda" like they are trying to convert people or something.

I don't think that anyone thinks that Davies is trying to "convert" people. I think that the objection is that instead of writing a series about people trying to save the world who happen to be bisexual he ends up writing a series about people who are bisexual who happen to try to save the world.

[oz1701]

as long as they don't camp it up i don't really care anyway - a good story is a good story regardless of the sexual orientation of the characters.

Well, this is the bone of contention for me. I gave up watching Torchwood for two reasons: in the first place, whatever the sexual orientation of the characters they were unsympathetic but; secondly, Captain Jack had become a preening "queen" whose sexuality seemed to be too much the driving force behind the narrative. .

exactly my point - they camped it up!

i agree with you about the unsympathetic characters - but i gave up watching when they shifted the show to 1:00 AM on a tuesday here.