"Doctor Who" season 9 is going to be the most epic yet

Very much enjoyed it, but...

Mentioned earlier that the series has gone up it's own arse before, and that really didn't help it. I want to see good tales, and while having a rich mythos is a good thing in which to dip in, if you're not careful it's a straightjacket, or, worse, the kind of get-up Michael Hutchence and David Carradine died in

Okay, apparently the name contains a hint if you speak Welsh. Never pegged you as a race traitor, Chup.

To me the guitar scene seemed pretty lazy and juvenile. "Time traveler wows medieval crowd with rock and roll from the future," which is a part of the stale "Time traveler wows medieval crowd with ____ ____ ____ from the future" genre, where _____ can be:

pizza
a beer can
a zippo lighter
a flashlight
a tablet computer
a pair of track shoes
a modern rifle or pistol
a helicopter
or
pretty much any fucking thing

True, but here it's not intended as that trope but as a shorthand for how the Doctor is acting a bit out of the ordinary. Twelve from last series wouldn't muck about like that. So either his impending death has freed him to cut loose or he got over his "am I a good man?" angsting. Either way, this Twelve is different to the one we got last series, and this scene was intended to showcase that.

Well, I'd say they should have showcased that in a way that didn't seem cheap and easy, such as having him drunk in some strip club in the future, shoving dollars into a girl's g-string.

Right before that I was wondering why they chose to open with the threat of airliners frozen in the sky, backed by reporters showing pictures of an airliner in the sky instead of rolling footage where everything is moving except the airliner. Showing the period TV audience still-frames that aren't moving wouldn't accomplish anything.

Presenter: "Here's a photograph of something that doesn't show it moving, which may look exactly like a photograph of something that is moving, but trust us, it's not."

At a guess, they chose the guitar scene for the obvious "ax" joke, and because Capaldi is an experienced musician who once fronted the punk band Dreamboys (along with Craig Ferguson).

trope or not, the rock guitar version of the show's theme song sold it for me!


Really liked the set up with the child and the guilt over what he did/didn't do with the choice. Really liked Missy going completely over-the-top and the whole riff of "my worst enemy and my closest friend are the same person (albeit it strikes me as pretty heavily ret-coning their relationship) but, OTOH, the trope I'm tired of is the whole "look! the Daleks killed our beloved characters (which you know full well won't be dead at the end of the next hour)!"

Am I the only one who noticed Missy deliberately grabbing one of the Dalek orbs like she was cupping balls?

If Roger Delgado hadn't died in a car accident, the Master was originally going to turn out to be either the Doctors brother, or some aspect of the Doctor himself, so it's not really out there to suggest they're closer than meets the eye.

"They're not breasts, OK?"

oh, and there were a lot of nice fun beats, like the bit where the Doctor refers to the Daleks as his worst enemy and Missy was like "Whaaat?"

Yes, Moffat is amazingly original in his ideas.

No one in the history of science fiction has ever contemplated the dilemma of going back in time and killing an evil person as a child. No one.

In fact, Doctor Who has never struggled with this type of choice. Tom Baker's Doctor never agonized over going back in time to destroy an evil species. Never happened.

Kudos to Moffat for being so fresh and original!

yeah the actually played the sound clip of Baker asking that exact question. I didn't say it was ORIGINAL or innovative, I said i liked it. Specifically, I liked that he didn't go there TO kill Davros, he was caught bu surprise after he'd painted himself into a bit of an ethical corner. Only a minor twist on the tired trope, but I liked it.

What would you do that would be fresh and original?

Lay a brick in his toilet.

Find an existing franchise with established characters and write a novel?

Which still would show more creativity than most of what we've seen on Doctor Who the past year.

Okay, serious answer:

1. I don't get paid to write Doctor Who scripts so I don't give these things a lot of thought. But I do know hackneyed ideas and trite scripts when I see them.

2. It seems the producers of Doctor Who have fallen into the same trap as the folks from Star Trek: Voyager: They're overusing fan-favourite enemies (The Borg in the case of Trek) and thus watering them down. You maybe -- maybe -- pull the Daleks out every two or three years.

3. Further to #2, introduce new antagonists rather than constantly re-hashing old ones. Moffat has shown promise in that regard, having authored "Blink", one of the best Who episodes in ages. He's also done some great work on Sherlock.

As I've said before, I think Capaldi is phenomenal and his talent has thus far been largely wasted on shitty scripts. The Beeb should have brought in a new showrunner and executive producer when they brought Capaldi on board.

I don't disagree. But that shit will continue as long as Moffat is in charge and continues to indulge himself. I felt the good thing about last season was that he seemed to have learned restraint (well, up until the finale anyhow). Saturday's episode just felt like a license to go back to old tropes. I found the whole "axe battle" cringeworthy and reminiscent of Matt Smith's continual gurning throughout series 5 and 6.

It’s interesting how you respond to a straightforward question with a Daytonesque insult, but reply to an insult with a detailed answer.

That said, I agree with everything you've said here. I only started watching Who because of Capaldi, and every time the Daleks show up I want to scream (although at least in this episode they were relatively unobtrusive).

I’d also like to see some new villains. The only ones I’ve seen in the past 8.1 seasons that impressed me were the Angels, and I don’t need to see them overplayed, either.

As far as this episode, I thought performance outweighed any conceptual weaknesses. Subtle “stage business” from Missy (what Diacanu said), etc. Though the Doctor on his knees pleading with Davros was…well, really. After 2,000 years you don’t get that that kind of thing doesn’t work? Really? You don’t beg a sadist; they get off on that. You stand on your dignity and say “Well, whatever I do, you’re going to kill them anyway, but you won’t get the reaction from me that you’d hoped for.”

Takes all the fun out of it for the Bad Guy. Will he back down? Probably not. But your lack of reaction will spoil his fun.

Obviously neither Missy nor Clara is really dead, and obviously the Doctor won’t kill the child Davros…but if I’m not mistaken, Who is often classified as a “children’s show,” so that kind of faux jeopardy would impress the preteen set, and maybe that’s what Moffat was going for.

Still, so far better than S8.

It hasn't been a children's show for the best part of it's run. It's been a family show for about 95% of it's run. It's simply had a heavy children's viewership.

On the basis of this one episode, no, not at all. Too many reused tropes from Moffat.....even ones used in last year's finale.

^De gustibus non est disputandem.

Poor misuse. Aren't you meant to be an expert on language?

A critical analysis clearly goes beyond a matte of taste.

It's still a subjective opinion. I liked it, you didn't. End of.

No, not really. I expected more from someone experienced in generating consumer products.

Wow, another Daytonism. Nice that you and WAB are in agreement on something, anyway.

Let me say this again: I have not watched more than a handful of episodes of the original Who. My comments are based entirely on what I've seen from the Eccleston year to the present. I enjoy the show. If something else is required of me, I'm inclined to wonder why.

Total nonsense reply. Don't evoke Latin phrases if you don't understand their meaning.

Or Baby Caesar will cry?

Meaning? Sure, it may be an old language, but I wasn't the one quoting it. Garamet seems to love her Latin phrases. She uses them more than most lawyers these days.

Very well, proceed with your course of action, if you think it'll produce something fruitful.