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Doctor Who Series 2011 |OT| Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey Stuff

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M

maharg

idspispopd
It's more appealing if you've actually watched old who. If you have no appreciation for the things it satirizes about the show, because they're largely gone in the new version, it probably just comes off as stupid.
 
Q

Quick

Banned
DoctorWho said:
Wasn't he rumored to be in series 6 at one time. I'll believe it when I see it.
Click to expand...

Pretty much. I don't ever rely on casting rumours for Who, because it can be outlandish and outrageous, which isn't really out of the ballpark in Who standards. They could cast virtually anyone and it would work.
 
The Elite

The Elite

BOSS
Quick said:
Pretty much. I don't ever rely on casting rumours for Who, because it can be outlandish and outrageous, which isn't really out of the ballpark in Who standards. They could cast virtually anyone and it would work.
Click to expand...

I always wanted Gillian Anderson as the Rani to happen.
 
D

Deleted member 10571

Unconfirmed Member
Regulus Tera said:
It's okay to feel conflicted about the Dalek bumps, my friend.
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:(

To be honest, I really did like quite a few jokes, like the bumps, the trap door bit and the "I'll explain later" thingies. Maybe the regeneration madness, too. The rest wasn't really my cup of tea, but I really didn't intend to offend anyone in here :)
 
B

BatDan

Bane? Get them on board, I'll call it in.
DieH@rd said:
I would rather like for them to start filming goddamned 7th season. They've already split into two halfs [one in 2012 and one in 2013], i dont need now casting news for such distant projects...
Click to expand...

Filming began a few days ago.
 
S

SpeedingUptoStop

will totally Facebook friend you! *giggle* *LOL*
If that casting news ever came true, the entire universe would explode in a very real way that even The Doctor couldn't retcon stop.
 
D

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
tumblr_lxvcf03UZm1qhn2wbo1_400.png
 
R

Regulus Tera

Romanes Eunt Domus
Bufbaf said:
:(

To be honest, I really did like quite a few jokes, like the bumps, the trap door bit and the "I'll explain later" thingies. Maybe the regeneration madness, too. The rest wasn't really my cup of tea, but I really didn't intend to offend anyone in here :)
Click to expand...

Nobody is gonna ostracise you for having wrong opinions. ;)
 
S

StalkerUKCG

Banned
The_Technomancer said:
River Song felt to me like she was written for the kind of people who would make a list of the Top Ten River Song Moments
Click to expand...

You cannot sum it up better. She was nothing but pandering to the weird side of the doctor who fanbase, dont get me wrong im a fucking MEGA fan but seriously i hated river she was essentially created or rather moulded by moffat into this .. romance that was completely unneeded.

I disagree with alot of stuff moffat has done and she is no exception, I knew moffat was going to be bad when he started talking about shit about he wanted to make doctor who a dark fairly tale and was influenced by twilight.

We wanted to give the look of the series a slightly more storybook, fairy-tale feel - within reason... It wasn't about suddenly becoming Tim Burton, but it was finding a pinch of that, a pinch of Twilight, a pinch of Harry Potter - but it's still absolutely, slap-bang, mainstream Doctor Who.
Click to expand...

Its far removed enough from both classic and RTD who that id argue its "slap-bang mainstream Doctor who"
 
G

GentlemanCrow

Member
River Song was fine in principal, she was set up an interesting drip-feed character and then last series *boom* Explained. Move on. Lame. I think River and how she was handled best shows the problems with Who Post revival. Lame. Over reaching and never fully making it on any promises. Up until the last series I watched it hoping it would eventually deliver. The idea for the show in general is limitless. A Man in a box that can go anywhere. The thing is that is never explored enough for my taste.

It is the lack of or shifting of rules that finally stopped me watching it. There are no rules or what rules there are are changeable to suit the emotion of the show.

The Doctor died in the first episode – an interesting idea and full of promise but then you think about it, he can’t die; the show is called Doctor Who. We all know that there wasn’t even a chance he was going to really die. So there is no tension. Then next thing becomes “Oh, how will he get out of this one?” Fine, interesting but then you know he will - he always does. In fact they give us two ways to cheat death mid-season. And then it’s a coin flip which one to use, “Oh the robot that tried to kill Hitler.” It’s cheap and it is insulting.

They must know this themselves because now they are making a threat they can deliver on, the departure of companions.

It so often goes for the whiz-bang over a competent plot that makes sense but it can’t pull of big spectacle because it has a BBC budget, constantly over reaching. The only times it does work is when the writers give themselves boundaries but they so rarely do. If you can’t deliver something well don’t do it.

Rant over.
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
I did really really like the idea that River Song and the Doctor were future lovers, as well as the implication that they'd end up married. I thought that it had the potential to be a really interesting turn of character development. I hoped that we'd see the development of their relationship, see him bonding to someone and opening up to someone in ways he hadn't before. But nope, the wedding was shoehorned in as a way to fix some wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff.
 
L

LuffyZoro

Member
The reveal that Mels was River would have meant more if she had, y'know, actually showed up before that episode. That, as well as not really enjoying the whole "I'm so much more awesome than everyone else" thing made me not too fond of her.
 
V

Ventilaator

Banned
Ooh! Ooh! Here's my "River sucks" analogy-thing.

The whole River Song arc felt like someone had summarized the actual River Song arc and then shown us all the parts that were too irrelevant to include in his summary.
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
LuffyZoro said:
The reveal that Mels was River would have meant more if she had, y'know, actually showed up before that episode. That, as well as not really enjoying the whole "I'm so much more awesome than everyone else" thing made me not too fond of her.
Click to expand...

The entire River Song arc in the recent season felt like they had some really good ideas, and they had them five minutes before the deadline. I think that they could have made it something really great, they just...didn't.
 
G

GameplayWhore

Member
The_Technomancer said:
I did really really like the idea that River Song and the Doctor were future lovers, as well as the implication that they'd end up married. I thought that it had the potential to be a really interesting turn of character development. I hoped that we'd see the development of their relationship, see him bonding to someone and opening up to someone in ways he hadn't before. But nope, the wedding was shoehorned in as a way to fix some wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff.
Click to expand...

Yeah, River Song fits rather effectively in the cabinet of amazing ideas that were completely wasted.

Great Idea: Two characters who meet each other in the exact opposite order, so you enjoy the moment but keep a bit of oncoming dread of the day where the other person has never met you.
Waste: This happens for a while but then is dropped for occasional randomness. The character's first twenty years of knowing the Doctor and his companions is covered in what feels like less than five minutes of screen time.

Great Idea: Characters get married, exist married together, then get married again in a bidirectional line segment of time. Outside the line, in each direction one of them knows they were/are married and the other does not.
Waste: The wedding happens in an alternate reality that shouldn't actually be remembered by at least one of the characters at all. Then she murders his robot corpse.

Great Idea: Someone the Doctor knows intimately was raised during childhood to kill him, and he must deal with the fallout of this revelation.
Waste: Everything's pretty okay. She acts wacky for a bit and decides not to kill him after all. He doesn't really care about it afterward.

Great Idea: The Doctor will tell her his secret name when they wed or something vague like that
Waste: "I'm really a robot, shoot me.... Good, now we're married!"

Great Idea: A character whom the Doctor meets nonlinearly can regenerate.
Waste: Pretty much every time we see her, she's portrayed by the same actress, or we see her as a tiny baby out of sequence. There's a short sliver of time with a couple throwaway actresses where this is different. And then she gives up her remaining regenerations so it doesn't matter anymore.

There was just so much wonderful potential here. River Song could have been a transcendentally great character. Instead she was pretty cool, and she had some nice one-liners.

I don't dislike her. But Moffat managed to turn her into just another fun character instead of something epic like his other big character, the Face of Boe.
 
K

KuwabaraTheMan

Banned
PalaceBrother said:
I couldn't agree more. I certainly appreciated her character more after the finale, but she still felt like a series of flashy vignettes.
Click to expand...

That's basically Series Six in a nutshell. A bunch of flashy vignettes without much in the way of meaningful developments.

The_Technomancer said:
I did really really like the idea that River Song and the Doctor were future lovers, as well as the implication that they'd end up married. I thought that it had the potential to be a really interesting turn of character development. I hoped that we'd see the development of their relationship, see him bonding to someone and opening up to someone in ways he hadn't before. But nope, the wedding was shoehorned in as a way to fix some wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the idea could have been executed much better (and I did love her first appearance), but it's been squandered in favor of more time wimey plotlines and building up River Song as some hypersexualized fetish piece.

Despite the fact that River should know the Doctor less now than when she first appeared (you know, because that was the end of her life), she's actually becoming more 'know it all' each time she shows up, which really boggles the mind.
 
B

BatDan

Bane? Get them on board, I'll call it in.
I don't see the issue with the show being a "dark fairy tale". Doctor Who went through numerous format changes in its 49 year run.
Educational show --> Sci-fi show --> Spy show --> Gothic horror and so on.

The reason Moffat mentioned Twilight is that it was popular with kids, and he always writes the show with kids in mind. Or maybe I just have low standards since I enjoy River Song. *shrugs*
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Operation "rewatch the series 6 finale to see if it gets any better" has concluded. The results: nope

The biggest problem is that the episode is just a series of flashy moments. Pterodactyls attacking kids in the park. A train riding into the Great Pyramid. Amy mowing down an army of Silence with a machine gun. The wedding.

Second problem: all the other species showing him their support, accentuated by River's speech, feels like the same issue that ruined The Sound of Drums: "omg look how much everyone in the universe loves the awesome Doctor!"

Third reason: why is this wedding happening again?

Fourth reason: the overall plot feels like a really stupid way to write themselves out of the corner they forced themselves into.
 
Jinfash

Jinfash

needs 2 extra inches
I've been catching up to The Office. Catherine Tate has been brought back for a couple of episodes. Moe hilarious than ever and never looked better (lolrhyme). I haven't realized that she's been losing weight.
 
P

PhoncipleBone

Banned
The_Technomancer said:
Operation "rewatch the series 6 finale to see if it gets any better" has concluded. The results: nope

The biggest problem is that the episode is just a series of flashy moments. Pterodactyls attacking kids in the park. A train riding into the Great Pyramid. Amy mowing down an army of Silence with a machine gun. The wedding.

Second problem: all the other species showing him their support, accentuated by River's speech, feels like the same issue that ruined The Sound of Drums: "omg look how much everyone in the universe loves the awesome Doctor!"

Third reason: why is this wedding happening again?

Fourth reason: the overall plot feels like a really stupid way to write themselves out of the corner they forced themselves into.
Click to expand...

Yup. It also just felt so compressed. It needed to be fleshed out a whole lot more. It was not as bad as I remembered it being, but it was not great either.

Best part: Rory with one of his most badass moments.
 
C

chiQ

Member
Having grown up with Doctor Who and followed the modern series I'm a bit sad that anyone wants anything **but** a series of flashy bits from it. It's always been mad sf in the BBC tradition of quarry, bad effects, and enemies of doom, with no reality-checks, balances, or depth. The's the whole point. I had to suspend my belief whenever it got too heavy over the past six years, and concentrate really hard on the superficial madness that I watch it for.
 
P

PalaceBrother

Member
Jinfash said:
I've been catching up to The Office. Catherine Tate has been brought back for a couple of episodes. Moe hilarious than ever and never looked better (lolrhyme). I haven't realized that she's been losing weight.
Click to expand...

She looks (and acts) so differently on the Office. It throws me every time she has a scene.
 
E

EleventhDoctor

Banned
chiQ said:
Having grown up with Doctor Who and followed the modern series I'm a bit sad that anyone wants anything **but** a series of flashy bits from it. It's always been mad sf in the BBC tradition of quarry, bad effects, and enemies of doom, with no reality-checks, balances, or depth. The's the whole point. I had to suspend my belief whenever it got too heavy over the past six years, and concentrate really hard on the superficial madness that I watch it for.
Click to expand...

I basically feel the same way. I love the show the way it is. The only complaint I have is inconsistent pacing. Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon was 2 hours but for me it could have been even longer. But the Flesh storyline was too drawn out and slow.
 
G

GameplayWhore

Member
chiQ said:
Having grown up with Doctor Who and followed the modern series I'm a bit sad that anyone wants anything **but** a series of flashy bits from it. It's always been mad sf in the BBC tradition of quarry, bad effects, and enemies of doom, with no reality-checks, balances, or depth. The's the whole point. I had to suspend my belief whenever it got too heavy over the past six years, and concentrate really hard on the superficial madness that I watch it for.
Click to expand...

It depends on how the flashy bits happen, to a degree. Isn't it great* how the Doctor is now SuperGod offscreen? Yeah, the scene with Rory and all the explosions in the background were epic, but the fact that it just happened off the bat with no setup makes it feel like Doc is an untouchable character. Usually, it takes a ton of effort for him to prevent a major baddie from killing everyone. Now? He just breathes, and the universe bends to his will.

We all know he's going to come out of it okay each serial/episode/season, but it made me not nearly as interested about his impending death as would normally be.


* That be sarcasm
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
GentlemanCrow said:
River Song was fine in principal, she was set up an interesting drip-feed character and then last series *boom* Explained. Move on. Lame. I think River and how she was handled best shows the problems with Who Post revival. Lame. Over reaching and never fully making it on any promises. Up until the last series I watched it hoping it would eventually deliver. The idea for the show in general is limitless. A Man in a box that can go anywhere. The thing is that is never explored enough for my taste.

It is the lack of or shifting of rules that finally stopped me watching it. There are no rules or what rules there are are changeable to suit the emotion of the show.

The Doctor died in the first episode – an interesting idea and full of promise but then you think about it, he can’t die; the show is called Doctor Who. We all know that there wasn’t even a chance he was going to really die. So there is no tension. Then next thing becomes “Oh, how will he get out of this one?” Fine, interesting but then you know he will - he always does. In fact they give us two ways to cheat death mid-season. And then it’s a coin flip which one to use, “Oh the robot that tried to kill Hitler.” It’s cheap and it is insulting.

They must know this themselves because now they are making a threat they can deliver on, the departure of companions.

It so often goes for the whiz-bang over a competent plot that makes sense but it can’t pull of big spectacle because it has a BBC budget, constantly over reaching. The only times it does work is when the writers give themselves boundaries but they so rarely do. If you can’t deliver something well don’t do it.

Rant over.
Click to expand...


River song is just Bad Wolf, or Saxon, or 'cracks in time'. Almost entirely pointless and unsatisfying 'season arc'. The episodes are standalone, just do them like that. Stupid pan away at end of episode to reveal bad wolf graffiti or a crack is just cheesy
 
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