Doctor Who [7]

A couple questions, Petty, if you're not to distracted by all the new Who stuff.

It seemed I was supposed to know who the scientist in Power of 3 was. Can you give me a hint?
Is River a significant continuing character through the rest of series 7? I think I'm getting her a bit sorted out, but I really want to see your edit.  After thinking about it I worked out a lot of what troubled me in Angels take Manhattan. The down side to asking the viewer to dig that deep into the timey-wimey is that when I apply that much thought to an episode I find I expect a higher level of logic on other things that I might otherwise just laugh off as I would with classic Who. The statue of Liberty for example. That makes no sense if I stop and think about it.  I know too much of it's history to believe that it had always been an angel, or to believe it might be one now.

Honestly I think I'm coming to like the episode quite a bit. It's not as charming as Blink but it has much of the same structure.  I'm glad they never filmed the PS though. Besides being over long and sappy, it would have been too clearly parallel to Blink.  It would have been nice to tip the hat to Brian though. Maybe just a quick shot of him picking up a very old letter from his post box,  and his face as he opens it.  Some things are best not said.

The tombstone bothered me because I don't think I've ever seen a stone with ages but no dates. It that common on your side? Besides, time travelers' ages are one of the hardest things to calculate, while year of death would be easy. So why no year of death? And why did the writers go to the trouble of adding ages (which are a little problematic) if there wasn't some kind of clue there? It's worth thinking on...

I'm liking your explanation of River having known them during their later life. It explains her line perfectly! On the other hand I hated Rory's line about "Hey Amy come look at this! There's another guy with my name!" or whatever. He's now an experienced time traveler who has just a minute before decoded the timey wimey paradox with enough confidence to kill himself. He should have instantly thought "Oh F***ing Hell!" on seeing his name. Just sayin'......

It seemed I was supposed to know who the scientist in Power of 3 was. Can you give me a hint?- David

I assume you mean Kate Stewart, the women with the blonde hair?
I am going to assume so, as I cant think of another prominent scientist in it.
That was her first appearance in the show, but her character is the daughter of someone very dear to the Doctor and therefore Who fans.

In Power of Three she is the new Head of UNIT.
Her father was the head of UNIT in the classic era, affectionately known as the Brigadier he first appeared in the 2nd Doctor era.
When the 3rd Doctor was confined to earth by the Time Lords as a punishment he became the scientific advisor to UNIT under the authority of the Brigadier, and the Brigadier reappeared in many stories all the way through to the 7th Doctor and even appeared in the Sarah Jane Adventures.



In the 11th Doctor era the Brigadier dies (as the actor, Nicholas Courtney, who played him had sadly passed away earlier in that year) and it forms a crucial moment in the episode the Wedding of River Song in the Doctors decision making-



So Kate was one for the long term fans and she will be reappearing on the show but not in series 7.

"Is River a significant continuing character through the rest of series 7? I think I'm getting her a bit sorted out, but I really want to see your edit."

No, she only has one more appearance in the final episode of the series.

But you could watch my edit now and stop at 2 hours 11 minutes and 10 seconds, as chronologically the bit you havent seen comes late in her time line.

(There is a sound synch issue on that vid however due to slicing so many sources together to make it- when the sound goes out go to tools/track synch in vlc and it needs to go to about -0.400s if memory serves to get back in synch.)

"The statue of Liberty for example. "

My own in story take on that is its a massive perception filter (like the TARDIS uses) and it only appears to the victims- to everyone else it stays where it always stays.
But its Who, this sort of thing goes with the territory for a Who fan.
I mean no-one in London (not even Lance) seems to remember the Loch Ness monster rampaging through the streets there in the 70's either.

"The tombstone bothered me because I don't think I've ever seen a stone with ages but no dates. It that common on your side?"

Its not uncommon, especially on older family graves for the names of the people to be near the top of the stone, as their was, and for the dates to be at the very bottom of the stone (which we never see) or even on the stones plinth.
Its common enough it never even occurred to me it was unusual.

"On the other hand I hated Rory's line about "Hey Amy come look at this! There's another guy with my name!" or whatever."

You have a point there, though it never occurred to me at the time, I suppose because he has a quite common sounding name, if he was called Xanadu Yordsnaffler or something then it would have struck me as odd.


edit add- I think the reason the ages are prominent on the grave, the clue, is to allow you work out that they would have lived long enough to have raised young River in New York.

OK, thanks!  Going to watch more Who now.

FUUUUUUUCKKK!!!!! I just found out they will air the dr Who anniversary episode  on cinema like 30 minutes from here, there are free seats and I have to go to a party instead! And I was really looking forward to the party, but now I nearly CRYING! Whhhy!?!?! I want to diiiiiieeeeeeeee....

I thought the Stone Angels were supposed to be stone?, The Statue of Liberty is made of metal.

According to the Doctor in Blink they quantum lock to stone when observed, there is nothing says they have to be made of stone originally or that they can only inhabit stone.
And when your not looking they are presumably organic and so living and able to move.

That and the montage at the end of Blink of all the statues all over the country that could potentially be Angels includes several metal statues.

(Out of story Moffat was setting an Angels story in New York, with possibly the most famous statue in the world there. It would be silly not to make use of it- and its at least a million times better than Ghostbusters 2  )

yeah but that Dough-boy was far more scary.

btw thanks for that BBC link, its fantastic.

Its is a very useful link, especially for all the Who stuff over the next week.

Wasnt the dough-boy marshmallow? (But yeah he was good)

David-I missed an answer to one of your points about the statue of liberty- you said as you know its history ect it interfered with your enjoyment, or acceptance of the idea.
But earlier in the episode it mentions that the Angels have 'taken over' almost every statue in Manhattan, so it wasnt always meant to be one and the paradox destroys the Angels, so Its not one now either (Im sure Halfy and YAvanna will be relieved to know)
Presumably its inhabited by the top Angel who has been orchestrating the whole human battery farm plan.

sorry to dork out but whens the big day again? I keep forgetting, thats probably not a good sign.

23rd- but lots to come before then.

The Stay Puft Marshmallow man!   I grew up with Stay Puft Marshmallows.

OK, I guess I can accept the Statue of Liberty, but it's not the episode's best moment. I think maybe another purpose the ages on the tombstone is that it tells Amy that if she goes back there is a reasonable chance of a long life with Rory, and presumably a good life as there seem to have been people who care enough about Rory to erect a fairly expensive stone. If it had been a pauper's grave and said he died of TB at the age of 32, Amy might have made a different decision.

I watched Snowmen last night. That was fun! Smith makes a good Dickensian raggity Dr. I didn't recognize Clara as being the same actor as in Asylum until the souffle line. This could be interesting! The Asylum woman (don't remember her name) was probably my second favorite side character from the series. I suppose she was being set up as a companion all the time.  

I suppose she was being set up as a companion all the time.- David

Hats off to the Moff and the fans for keeping that quiet considering Asylum was premiered at special screenings in New York, London and Australia (not sure exactly where!) more than a month before broadcast and no one leaked that reveal at all.

Its a good solid xmas Who is the Snowmen, and I love the London Underground lunchbox and the Doctor telling the GI the Underground is a 'strategic weakness', so setting up the 2nd Doctor story the Web of Fear- thats genius that is and a lovely littlel connection for the fans.

I tried that link again and it said my web browser Microsoft Windows 7.0 is out of date and unsupported, it wont let me use the link. I dont know what I need to do.

That sounds suspicious Figg.   Never had that, or any problems with it before.

edit add- just tried it worked fine. Im using firefox with adblock on.

Maybe try it or chrome instead of IE.

whats chrome and is it free? I dont have any firefoxy things or Norton or any blocky things

Try this one Figg:

http://www.time4tv.com/2011/06/bbc-one.php

It gives you the choice of all bbcs channels and gives you several streams for each channel if one is choppy or not working.  

Mozilla Firefox and Google Crome are alternative (and imo better) browsers than IE.
Both are free so its really just a matter of preference. I use Firefox as I think its adblocking tool is better.

Firefox-

http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/

Google Chrome-

https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/

Mrs Figg wrote:whats chrome and is it free? I dont have any firefoxy things or Norton or any blocky things

I think you're very firefoxy, Mrs Figg.

anyways thanks guys for the advice. I down/up/whatever loaded chrome but whattheheckitdo? whats it for? does it do Nortony things? like protecting your computer and stuff? no clue. srsly thehellzitdo?

Bluebottle wrote:Try this one Figg:

http://www.time4tv.com/2011/06/bbc-one.php

It gives you the choice of all bbcs channels and gives you several streams for each channel if one is choppy or not working.  

thanks I will try that later.   I am a bit of a nincompoop when it comes to interweb stuff.

Orwell wrote:

Mrs Figg wrote:whats chrome and is it free? I dont have any firefoxy things or Norton or any blocky things

I think you're very firefoxy, Mrs Figg.

 

It's a browser, Mrs Figg. You'd use it instead of Microsoft's Internet Explorer to hook up to the net.

I have similar problems using an older Windows, so I've chosen to use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer when I go online. It's not perfect, but it's a big help. Never tried Chrome but I've heard mostly good things.

ok I just tried that link again and its saying the same thing, although I just downloaded chrome. it says my browser is still Windows 7 and its unsupported, whats the matter with the stupid thing  

No. Norton is trying to filter stuff as it comes in the pipe. The browser is the pipe.

When you connect to the internet, do you click on a large blue lower-case "e"? That's Internet Explorer which was built by committee at Microsoft and is 10 times bigger and clunkier than it needs to be, and sometimes things plug in the pipe.