Doctor Who

Great side by side to show how it has stayed the same, mind my favourite theme from Matt Smiths run is the 'I am the Doctor' theme.
Get goosebumps and sit on the edge of my seat when it starts in an episode!

There is a band called Chameleon Circuit who sings songs about Dr. Who. The guy who makes them is Charlie McDonnel




And this is for you Lorient! A good description of Doctor Who!

In a similar vein to Tin's posts I would recommend this Lorient. A BBC documentary made in 2003 (2 years before the seies returned after an absence of several years). Its in several parts but the first 10 minute part in particular introduces the basic concepts behind the show very well and is worth a watch.

Auntie Mabel was in Doctor Who!

Is that a hip allusion to something Ally or do you really have an Aunt Mabel?

Anyhow on to the penultimate episode of the series and I think the first such episode not be part of a two part finale. As always contains SPOILERS!

Doctor: "You've redecorated. I don't like it."
Craig: "It's a different house!"

So the Doctor is on his fair well tour before going to his death. So is this 200 years later in his personal timeline? No wonder he was having so much fun way back in the series opener throughout history, getting into Laurel and Hardy films and annoying Monarchs along the way. But now its time for his date with an Impossible Astronaut, well almost, just time to drop back in on Craig from last years Lodger episode.
Craig is now married and a new father, left alone for the weekend with baby Alfie to demonstrate to his wife and family he can in fact cope. So 'One Man, a Time Lord and a Baby' then (+ Cybermen).
Not that Craig is overly keen at first, happy as he is to see the Doctor he is aware of the Doctors habit of bringing trouble with him.

"Is it my fridge? Are there aliens in my fridge?"

In a nice touch the Doctor keeps noticing the sort of things that, well he notices, problems in the local electricity supply and odd goings on in a department store and despite tellng himself he doesn't go about saving the universe anymore he just can't help himself and gets himself a job in the store appropriately selling kids toys.

"I work in a shop now. I've got a name badge, just in case I forget my name! Which has happened."

Soon enough shop employees are being snatched and converted into the Cyberman ranks and Craig and baby Alfie are dragged into the romp. But this one isn't really about Cybermen, they are just the excuse. This one is about the Doctor, and the reoccuring themes of this series which are all brought together here- love, parenthood, responsibility and consequences.

Craig : I blew them up with love!
Doctor :No, that's impossible, not to mention grossly senitmental and overly simplistic *goes off on lang rant, then gives it up.* ... Yeah, you blew them up with love.

If you have had enough of babies and/or love this series then this would probably not have helped much. This was also a low key, almost low budget episode, quite unusual for a series penultimate episode and yet it worked for all that. Without all the explosions and high drama we got some room for real drama. The old Doctor talking to baby Alfie about the stars was beautiful and sad.

"They don't look like that you know, they are rather more impressive. You know when I was little like you I dreamt of the stars. I think its fair to say in the language of your age, that I lived my dream. I owned the stage. Gave it a hundred and ten percent. I hope you have as much fun as I did, Alfie."

And that sadness was there throughout what was otherwise a very funny episode. The sense of the Doctor saying his goodbyes was never lost among the laughs and as the episode drew to a close and Craig gave the Doctor the stetson he was wearing in an Impossible Astronaut, and we saw the Doctor aquiring the blue envelopes he sends out there was a growing sense of his inescapable doom.
And whilst this episode goes someway to giving the Doctor some positives about himself it seems ultimatly not to be enough.

Craig- "You always win. You always survive."
Doctor -"Heh. Those were the days..."

And so the Doctor sorts out the Cybermen (nice to see the return of the silver rats the cybermats too) and takes to the Tardis for one last trip, witnessed appropriately by a small group of children playing in the street.

Doctor: ''Hello. I'm the Doctor. I was here to help. And you're very welcome.''

Children whose testimony in the future would be poured over by Doctor River Song, archeologist. And there is something horribly sad about the Doctor's use of the past tense when he talks about himself here. And so off he goes to meet his fate.
The episode ends with what was effectively an introduction to the finale, with Kovarian returning and the reveal of who is in the astronaut suit below the Lake and who kills the Doctor.

Kovarian: "By Silencio Lake, on the Plain of Sighs, The impossible astronaut will rise from the deep and strike the time lord dead!"
River: "It's just a story"
Kovarian: "And this is where it begins..."

And we have seen how it ends- with River imprisoned for murder and a dead Doctor whose corpse is given a viking style funeral. So how does he get out of this? Frankly with an episode still to go I have no idea. But I am very, very much looking forward to finding out. Given there is only one episode and forty five minutes to go to wrap up a lot of loose ends I suspect the finale will be a breahless affair.

Final thought- when did Amy become a famous model? How much time has passed in their chronology since the Doctor dropped them off last week? Or is this a subtle hint something else is going on? And will we ever find out why the Tardis blew up at the end of series 5?

The prequal vid for the finale is up already. More questions than answers of course. I have a theory about those eye patches that seems to be bourne out here- I suspect they somehow make you remember the Silence after you look away (although I'm probably wrong- again!)

I've watched Silence in the Library/Forest of the dead! Any other suggestions about what I should watch from the 10th doctor???

Blink is good (and has a sequel of sorts in series 5) and the Family of Blood two parter- they are favourites of mine anyway. I'm sure Kafria and others will have some personal favourites to throw in there too.
But if you are just wanting to set yourself up to watch from series 5 to current (end of 6) with the 11th Doctor then there is not anything else you have to see other than Silence in the library.

"Auntie Mabel was in Doctor Who!"- Ally

Mmmm either I am missing something or you have an account on Gallifrey Base Ally as I just read this there;

'Sat and watched it with my mum. She absolutely loved Stormageddon, and I had to put up with her pointing out to me "Look! It's Auntie Mabel! You remember Auntie Mabel don't you?"

Loved the last episode! for all the reasons you mentioned, had another sniffle when I realised the Stetson was gonna come from Craig. It's just sooooooooo heart wrenching. I thought the moment when the doctor almost called to Amy and Rory (and Rorys patient, but not overly happy expression at waiting for Amy to sign autographs!) was very touching, pleased to see them doing well, but finally acting the grown up enough to not say hi!

If it has been a while since Amy and Rory where dropped off (and I suppose it is feasible that he has dropped them off just after the wedding - the family angst at missing them has been happily absent from this doctors tenure!), it would explain the mad dash they made in ep 1 to get to see him!

Also loved that Rory was carrying all the bags- how like Rory. And how like Amy to let him.

SPOILERS!
Although I'm a bit stumped as to when this episode takes place. I think it must be 2012 or later. Amy's perfume is named after the word for 'the smell of dust after rain' which is from the Doctors Wife- so it must be after that- so either its during the season break (which was after DW) or after he dropped them off last week, but long enough for Amy to have some sort of successful modelling career- successful enough to be signing photographs.
I don't think it can be right before Impossible Astronaut becasue if that were the case Amy and Rory would know all about River-however the newspaer in theis episode is dated the 19th of April this year- 3 days before the Doctor is due to die, although this might just be a production error as its not highlighted just there if you look at the top of the paper- and assuming the Dotor arrives on the Friday night- and the events takes place n the Saturdy and he leaves on the Sunday then a date of the 19th works fine. But it doesn't regards Amy and Rory- sure they would hae at least hinted at Amy being a famous model in Impossible Astronaut and its unlikely there would be enough time for her to become so between last xmas 2010 and April 2011. Hopefully the finale will clear these matters up.

Did you all see Community on NBC this Thursday? They did a wonderful reference to Dr. Who with their parody Inspector Spacetime. I don't follow The Doctor, but my daughter does, and she loved it.



There was also some excellent parody of 2001: A Space Odyssey.



I love that show.

Maybe "homage" is a better word for the 2001 segment. But you get the idea.

That's a disgraceful way to treat Doctor Who! {{{ -loved it really, Americans have a very particular fondness for the Doctor when they use him- as in Family Guy (has he been in the Simpsons?)}}}

ps "This is the best show I've ever seen in my entire life"- well he's right about that at least!

At least, not as far as I know. And we watch The Simpsons a lot at our house. There's something for everyone in that show.

Glad you enjoyed the clips, PT!

A quick hunt and found this- blink and you miss it but the 4th Doctor in the Simpsons!



According to wiki Who has been parodied on the following US shows; 'Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons, Late Night With Conan O'Brien, Robot Chicken, and The Colbert Report.' They missed Family Guy- I seem to remember them using the Time Vortex from the 4th Doctors intro sequnece in the Star Wars parody (when the Falcon goes into light speed)
Obviously with the show being 50 year sold soon the list of British shows its been parodied on is very long.

Completely unrelated to parody (well depends on your take on techno music I suppose!) Here's Doctor Who at Glastonbury (no really). The main theme by Orbital. Too cool not to put up.
And amazing really a near 50 year old tv theme tune can still have such appeal!

Just saw Blink and Waters from Mars. Yes, I am going out of Order, but I've already seen the last episode, soo...
But what episode does the Master come in?

Utopia is the one you want Tin- the first of three linked stories followed by The Sound of Drums and The Last of the Time Lords.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:A quick hunt and found this- blink and you miss it but the 4th Doctor in the Simpsons!



According to wiki Who has been parodied on the following US shows; 'Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons, Late Night With Conan O'Brien, Robot Chicken, and The Colbert Report.' They missed Family Guy- I seem to remember them using the Time Vortex from the 4th Doctors intro sequnece in the Star Wars parody (when the Falcon goes into light speed)
Obviously with the show being 50 year sold soon the list of British shows its been parodied on is very long.

FUNNY CLIP!

Thanks for sharing, PT. I don't recall having seen that before. My daughter the Whovian will be delighted.

I love that the "esteemed representatives of television" appear to be: Kent Brockman, Bumblebee Man, the Doctor, Urkel, and Krusty The Clown. It's noteworthy that only two of them exist outside of Springfield. What do Urkel and the Doctor have in common?

So Dr. Who is a hit in Springfield, or perhaps the Timelords visited Springfield? Or does the Doctor watch The Simpsons which exists only as a TV show in his time-space?

Which reminds me of my favorite criticism of Star Trek IV: The film's one great flaw is that it presents an alternate reality 20th century where the Star Trek TV show does not exist. Which is, of course, impossible for any fan to imagine.

Remembrance of the Daleks (7th Doctor story) is set in 1963- the year Doctor Who was first broadcast and in one scene a tv is on in the background and you can hear the original BBC continuity reader introducing the first episode and the opening couple of bars of the theme tune. Timey-wimey indeed.

When Who was relaunched in 2005 they really wanted to do a crossover with Star Trek but legal stuff and ST by then being a bit rubbish etc got in the way. But to have the Tardis materialise on the bridge of the Enterprise- if they had done that I may have well died from nerdgasims.

It sounds like Dr. Who has really explored time travel thoroughly. It makes me wish I hadn't dismissed the show so quickly when I was a teenager (because of the low-budget effects being done at the time, and yes, I'm a moron). I liked the Peter Cushing movies, but I know they don't count.

One can only move on. The show broadcasts on Sunday nights here in Chicago, so I'll watch. Last week was the Star Whale episode (my wife and I enjoyed it), and this week will be the one where Winston Churchill has Daleks fighting for England, if I understood the promo correctly.

Thanks Petty!

Wobbit you are, sadly, about to see one of the poorer- if not generally regarded as the poorest episode in the current run- the Churchill one- dont let it put you off, the rest are superb!!I would strongly recommend if possible catching the episode preceding the star whale one too- The 11th Hour- as it contains the set up for significant things in the series (such as why the camera at the end of the Whale episode focuses on the crack on the ship).

The Cushing films are an odd, off to the side thing in Who- not actually Doctor Who but based on it, the main character is just a human scientist in it not a Time Lord. However the first film closely follows the plot of the 1st Doctor story The Dalek Invasion of Earth. Which I would highly recommend.



Here's a fan trailer for it too.

While I'm recommending classic episodes try the 2nd Doctor story War Games. But be warned its not short and the whole story is about 4 hours long. But worth it.



And the 1st Doctor tale The Time Meddler I also recommend.