Doctor Who [7]

you're just as stubborn as Petty.- Norc


Im not stubborn, Im just always right!!

see.

Doctor Who's 50th anniversary episode breaks the Timelord's number one rule and re-writes history
MailOnline.Monday, Nov 25 2013


Here, through an alliance of three generations of The Doctor (John Hurt, David Tennant and Matt Smith), that decision was reversed.
Like the notorious episode of Dallas where the previous series turned out to be a dream, this was basically Moffat re-writing Doctor Who history, TV history.
It seemed a bit rich considering all the emotional mileage the programme has milked out of The Doctor's angst in the past and somewhat ironic given that re-writing history (stopping The Titanic, saving Pompeii, killing Hitler) is the one thing The Doctor is always telling his companions he can’t do.
You can't help wonder whether Moffat will regret it. Being responsible for a holocaust surely gave The Doctor an added depth and edge. The devastation he inflicted was his burden. Without it, there is a danger he will simply be an eccentric, albeit one who can journey through space and time.
This is the kind of Doctor Matt Smith has been. He appeared reading a book on Advanced Quantum Mechanics, jauntily making Clara Oswald the offer 'fancy a trip to Mesopotamia followed by future Mars?' and cramming in quirky references to 'spoilers', 'grunge' and cup-a-soup that were meant to be hilarious.
This aside, it was as if Moffat had concentrated on putting so much in to the 50th anniversary special, he had forgotten what it most needed. It was neither scary or funny enough.
Instead, it had too far much gratuitous content that only seemed to be there to live up to its billing.
The sub-plot in which David Tennant as The Doctor married Queen Elizabeth I was worthy of BlackAdder with Joanna Page seemingly playing Miranda Richardson. Scenes of soldiers wearing ruffles shouting 'the Queen !' were so amateurish they were more like old Monty Python parodies. Other were as camp and dated as Blake's Seven.
'He's a fool !' one of Gallifrey's commanders said of The Doctor.
'No, he's a madman !' said another
There was much sub-Prog Rock mumbo-jumbo about 'a tear in the fabric of reality', 'isolated sonic shifts' and a planet being 'frozen in an instant of time.'
Worst of all was the excruciating spectacle of Matt Smith and David Tennant meeting each other and struggling to understand their shared identity which was like watching mime artists doing the achingly unfunny identical mirror mime.

Tennant and Smith were clearly enjoying themselves enormously - far too much, so the scene became more about the actors not the character. The one thing a drama should never do. Between them, The Doctor's incessant gabbling and shouting has made him look increasingly like a shallow show-off and a far cry from figures such as Christopher Eccleston, Tom Baker and Jon Pertwee.
In the end, we were asked to believe that - instead of the version we and the subsequent Doctors had believed all these years - The Doctor hadn't blown up planet Gallifrey but moved it to 'a parallel pocket universe' with the daleks that were surrounding it being destroyed by firing on each other.

'It's delusional !' cried one of Gallifrey's commanders of The Doctor's plan - or the plot

Each to their own review wise- for every bad one Ive read there are 10 good (and I must have read a hundred reviews since it aired)- on balance, critically it did exceptionally well- and the Mail is notorious for panning anything BBC as they are a staunch political critic of it (to leftie). Their reviews of anything from the BBc are worth taking with a pinch of political salt.

But nowhere in the points they raise do they claim that undoing the Time War result will stop the Doctor being the Doctor- which was your claim.

Does anyone know how the Rotten Tomatoes site works?- does it get an average from different reviews?

Im trying to find somewhere that has collated all the review scores.

At the moment on RT Day is at 96% but as I dont know where they get that score from as Im not sure what it represents!

hey, why does the doctor have this look on his face when he knew he was faking? oor....

To convince everyone else watching - including the Silence of course that Amy saw hanging about the beach waiting to make sure he dies.

Also thats when he turns to the rest of them and says 'Sorry'- because he is going to have to make his friends think he is dead too. And he is genuinely sad and upset by that.

oh... didn't know he was such a .. drama queen

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Each to their own review wise- for every bad one Ive read there are 10 good (and I must have read a hundred reviews since it aired)- on balance, critically it did exceptionally well- and the Mail is notorious for panning anything BBC as they are a staunch political critic of it (to leftie). Their reviews of anything from the BBc are worth taking with a pinch of political salt.

But nowhere in the points they raise do they claim that undoing the Time War result will stop the Doctor being the Doctor- which was your claim.

and screw your snide belittling of my opinions. fuck you.

such horrid language..

well fuck you too  

oi, be nice to each other.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Does anyone know how the Rotten Tomatoes site works?- does it get an average from different reviews?

Im trying to find somewhere that has collated all the review scores.

At the moment on RT Day is at 96% but as I dont know where they get that score from as Im not sure what it represents!

The Rotten Tomatoes score means that 96% of the aggregated reviews were positive (in the judgement of RT's editors).  However, the RT score does not distinguish between reviewers WHO moderately liked something and those who think it was the greatest thing EVAR!!1

Thanks for clarifying that Eldo.

oh... didn't know he was such a .. drama queen- Norc

Oh I think we can safely say 11 is a bit of drama queen!

"and screw your snide belittling of my opinions. fuck you."- Mrs Figg

I never commented on your opinions at all let alone belittled them- only on the assertion that the Doctor without war guilt is not the Doctor.
That is demonstrably false as we had 43 years of him being the Doctor without any war guilt, it's therefore not an opinion, just a false premise.

And do note as a comparative Halfy (as you seem to need lessons on crabbit- even after all this time!  ) that I never tell anyone to fuck off or use swearing as an aggressive attack (only ever for humour) as its a sure sign you have lost control of your crabbit and allowed it to descend into anger- and anger ain't crabbit.

Coming soon- once Ive uploaded them to my photobucket- Day of the Screenshots!

i just want to point out that billie piper has completely different eyebrows in the aniversary ep.
normal:

aniversaru ep.

Well she is older, spread through time and a concious WMD. Bound to change a few things.

''And do note as a comparative Halfy (as you seem to need lessons on crabbit- even after all this time! Mad ) that I never tell anyone to fuck off or use swearing as an aggressive attack (only ever for humour) as its a sure sign you have lost control of your crabbit and allowed it to descend into anger- and anger ain't crabbit''. Petty


No thats true. You use belittling and patronizing remarks like 'risible' and 'silly'. You say them in passive aggressive ways to get somebody angry, then you get on the moral high horse and say you dont insult people. Well you do insult people, you are just more underhand about it than I am..I debate my opinion, you make personal comments disguised as commentary. compliments to the chef.

You use belittling and patronizing remarks like 'risible' and 'silly'. - Figg

A habit of writing all the time is a desire to find the most accurate word- in this case risible seemed the perfect word to describe the claim that the Doctor shorn of his war guilt cannot any longer be the Doctor when there is 43 YEARS worth of evidence to the contrary.

Now if your opinion had been the angst of the Time War gave added depth to the character or something that is an opinion, one I can agree or disagree with but not refute as it would be your opinion.

Your statement about the Doctor however is simply wrong, demonstrably hugely wrong as we have had 8 Doctors with no war guilt at all and they were all still the Doctor.

"Well you do insult people"

Maybe I do, not much I can do about that if people take insults where no insult was meant (at least not on any personal level) it was insulting to your point, but then the point was indeed risible.

"I debate my opinion"

I will repeat again, I have made no attack on your opinion- only on these claims you made-

"The Doctor NEEDS his pain, he NEEDS his guilt to make him who he is."

"now the Doctor is no longer The Doctor"

The assertion the Doctor cannot be the Doctor any more without the Time War guilt hanging over him is what I have been discussing. And is obviously untrue when he was the Doctor without it for 43 out of 50 years of the show.

I think you make some fair points, Figg.

The 50th Aniversary episode was certainly not without it's flaws. I'll have to be honest though and say I quite enjoyed it. So I try not to think about them too hard.

I have to say I'm with Petty on the Time War issue however. There were several things that made the Doctor a troubled individual before the Time War concept was introduced.

He was an outcast from the start, seperated from his own people. Under Pertwee he was expelled to earth and bound to it's destiny. I would say theres always been darkness in his character.

Also I think it's better for the show that he gets to be a little less important. This "Supreme being of the Universe" thing made for some uninspiring television at times.

The 50th Anniversary episode was certainly not without it's flaws. - Blue

I wouldn't disagree Blue, I highlighted some in my review- for me they were never anything like enough to detract from the overall enjoyment however.

And taken in the context of the show's own history for anniversary and special episodes- would anyone rate it below the Five Doctors? Three Doctors? Two Doctors? Dimensions in Time?

I doubt it.

"This "Supreme being of the Universe" thing made for some uninspiring television"

I think, much like the Time War angst it had served its purpose and was becoming continuity baggage weighing the shows original concept down.

"When you set off to explore the universe all those years ago, did you really think you would become this? The man who can turn an army around at the mention of his name. "Doctor." The word for healer and wise man throughout the Universe. We get that word from you, you know. But if you carry on the way you are, what might that word come to mean?"- River Song, A Good Man Goes to War.

As promised- Day of the screencaps!

Spoiler:

How is 11 300 years older than 10? My friend and I were trying to figure it out...

Because of all the stuff that happens around Lake Silencio in series 6-

Spoiler:

Hope that clears it up for you yer Maj!

Day of the screencaps 2- Queens and Zygons oh my!

Spoiler: