[Aptorian]

Of what I've seen that's been broadcast in Denmark, the new stuff I'm guessing, the show is interesting but it's very British filmatography vise and the effects and acting is atrocious.

[caladanbrood]

stone monkey, on May 30 2009, 06:49 PM, said:

Yes Tennant has been well served by some excellent scripts; "Blink", which was on again last week, is outsandingly good television.

He was hardly in that one though! I think my favourite individual episode could be "Midnight", though I guess it's overshadowed by some of the two-part stories, mostly series finales.

[Cougar]

I watch it but I can only manage it because I have such affection for it from my childhood (Silvester MacCoy FTW). It's very camp and the Sci-fi isn't great but it's strangely enjoyable

[Illuyankas]

stone monkey, on May 30 2009, 06:49 PM, said:

Yes Tennant has been well served by some excellent scripts; "Blink", which was on again last week, is outsandingly good television. Ecclestone had a couple of decent scripts himself, "The Empty Child", for one, is incredibly creepy...

Both scripts written by Moffat, who's now in charge and provides a slim hope that they'll finally get rid of Mary Sue Chavler once and for all.

[Sir Thursday]

caladanbrood, on May 30 2009, 08:11 PM, said:

stone monkey, on May 30 2009, 06:49 PM, said:

Yes Tennant has been well served by some excellent scripts; "Blink", which was on again last week, is outsandingly good television.

He was hardly in that one though! I think my favourite individual episode could be "Midnight", though I guess it's overshadowed by some of the two-part stories, mostly series finales.

I kind of agree with you here - Midnight was the best episode they did in the 4th season. This is mainly because it featured very little of Catherine Tate. Blink was best in Season 3 (although the Human Nature two parter was pretty good), and I think my favourite from Season 2 was Girl in the Fireplace (that was Season 2, right?). Season 1? Nothing stands out. In part because it was a while ago. But back then the concept was fresh and I think that helped.


Sir Thursday

[Stalker]

yeah I really liked "Midnight" too, though the season 4 finale is way up there too, along with the "silence in the library" 2 part episode.

When are they supposed to air more of the specials? They don't air in the US that I know of, so I want to be ready to hit up the internet and find the episodes.

[stone monkey]

I believe that BBC America have got the rights to show the specials... But are only going to do so when they're all done. Personally I thought Catherine Tate worked very well as a companion... There was none of the dewy-eyed staring at the Doctor that we got from Billie Piper and Freema Agyeman's characters.

[RodeoRanch]

Hopefully the new hottie companion doesn't follow the "love the Doctor" route as well.

[Sir Thursday]

stone monkey, on May 31 2009, 07:09 PM, said:

I believe that BBC America have got the rights to show the specials... But are only going to do so when they're all done. Personally I thought Catherine Tate worked very well as a companion... There was none of the dewy-eyed staring at the Doctor that we got from Billie Piper and Freema Agyeman's characters.

That was an improvement there, I guess, but my problem was that she couldn't deliver a line convincingly to save her life. I could barely listen to her without my face in my hands (with the exception, perhaps, of Turn Left...I didn't think she was so bad in that one).

Might just have been that I had become a lot more critical of the stuff I watch by the time Season 4 rolled around, but I was never especially bothered by the excessive Rose/Martha Doctor Love stuff. With Rose, it kind of seemed appropriate, and I didn't really have time to notice in Season 3 because the first half of the season was full of poor plots that gave me plenty of other stuff to complain about and the second half was filled with very good plots that made up for it.

I don't think I can be bothered with the other specials - I saw that first one and found it thoroughly irritating all the way through. I think there was supposed to be some chemistry between Doctor Who and the Bionic Woman, but none of it came off on screen (in fact her whole character was just rather rubbish really)...the fawning Unit people cheesed me off too. I don't think I can tolerate any more scenes with shot after shot of random side characters looking gobsmacked, or Tennant's "Oh wow, look how wondrous this is!" schtick...Russell T Davies seems to have a problem with that, he always puts waaaay too much in. I'll give it another chance when Moffat takes the reins.


Sir Thursday

[caladanbrood]

Yeah the desert special was particularly poor. Only Lee Evans came close to dragging it out of the mire. The clips from the next one do look pretty cool though, might just watch it for the monster. Some guy who drowns people on Mars, from what I can tell.

Don't think the Doctor has ever died by drowning. Interesting.

[QuickTidal]

Why do I keep running into people who didn't like the "Planet of the Dead" special? I really liked it. Very simplistic, but entertaining for me bigtime!

The Waters of Mars looks like it could be very good.

Spoiler

finally we get to see about the ring picked out of the ashes of the Master's funeral pyre at the end of series 3! It would appear the Master is returning. I've heard tell Freema, Piper and Tate are all back for Tennant's last hurrah come Christmas and the last special.

We shall see.

Karen Gillan is hooooootttttt! Yum! I'm such a big Tenant fan though, I will have to reserve judgment on Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor until I see him in action.

~QuickTidal wishes he had a TARDIS of his very own.....and maybe Billie Piper.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 05 June 2009 - 02:22 AM

[Centzon Totochtin]

QuickTidal, on Jun 5 2009, 12:21 PM, said:

Why do I keep running into people who didn't like the "Planet of the Dead" special? I really liked it. Very simplistic, but entertaining for me bigtime!

The Waters of Mars looks like it could be very good.

Spoiler

finally we get to see about the ring picked out of the ashes of the Master's funeral pyre at the end of series 3! It would appear the Master is returning. I've heard tell Freema, Piper and Tate are all back for Tennant's last hurrah come Christmas and the last special.

We shall see.

Karen Gillan is hooooootttttt! Yum! I'm such a big Tenant fan though, I will have to reserve judgment on Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor until I see him in action.

~QuickTidal wishes he had a TARDIS of his very own.....and maybe Billie Piper.

I wish I had a TARDIS and a David Tennant of my very own

I really enjoyed Planet of the Dead also. I don't analyse these things much, I just sit back and enjoyt the insanity The nest two special should be really interesting! I can't wait

[Sir Thursday]

QuickTidal, on Jun 5 2009, 03:21 AM, said:

Why do I keep running into people who didn't like the "Planet of the Dead" special? I really liked it. Very simplistic, but entertaining for me bigtime!

The problem with Planet of the Dead, in my eyes, was that the simplistic nature of the story meant there was nothing to hide the more irritating aspects of Doctor Who that have steadily grown more prominant under RTD.

The main one of these (something that I feel comes out in interviews with RTD quite a lot as well, which is why I feel he is probably the root of the problem) is that the show makes a point of saying "Isn't this special?" far too often. The show basks in its own magnificence (or at least, what it thinks is magnificance) when it shows gobsmacked expression after gobsmacked expression, or when the Doctor ceaselessly points out how Wonderful everything is. There is no need to jam such feelings down the audiences throats - the producers seem to have forgotten that it is possible for us to be impressed without them telling us to be.

Then you have to factor in that Michelle Ryan did a horrible job in her role. There was supposed to be something between her and the Doctor, that was clear, but it really didn't feel like that when you watched it. The line delivery left something to be desired, as well. Plus, her character was annoying and overconfident, and didn't get what she deserved (which was to be locked up). There wasn't enough in the script for Tennant to carry it on his own without a sympathetic foil to play off, which left very little to enjoy on the character front.

So I'll leave it until Moffat takes over and hopefully tones down the excessive wonder-o-meter, unless I hear very good things about the next special.


Sir Thursday

[caladanbrood]

QuickTidal, on Jun 5 2009, 03:21 AM, said:

The Waters of Mars looks like it could be very good.

Spoiler

finally we get to see about the ring picked out of the ashes of the Master's funeral pyre at the end of series 3! It would appear the Master is returning. I've heard tell Freema, Piper and Tate are all back for Tennant's last hurrah come Christmas and the last special.

We shall see.

Well this is good news.

Spoiler

I can't really be bothered with returning companions, and I wish they'd just let Billie stay *dead* but the Master has been excellent, in both Derek Jacobi and John Simm guises It's definitely a good sign that he's back, since there are very few opponents that could really believably kill the Doctor now, after he's been built up as so damn powerful...

[RodeoRanch]

Giggidy.

[Stalker]

^awesome!

Shouldn't be too hard to find on the internet.


edit: the bottom of the article say that Tennant quit, which is lame.

This post has been edited by Stalker: 24 June 2009 - 01:19 AM

[caladanbrood]

Hmm. They did a special for Children in Need a few years back with Peter Davison and David Tennant that was pretty fun. Even more of them is bound to be fun

[QuickTidal]

The Waters of Mars (the newest special) has aired in the UK yesterday I believe, or on the weekend at any rate. I have yet to watch it but will hopefully be doing so later tonight. Just resurrecting the thread so we can talk about it....

...not to mention the little trailer at the end of it for the first part of the December aired two-parter

Spoiler

The Master returns! Bearded and badass. Looks good to me so far, woot!

I will be quite saddened to see Tennant go, but I am VERY excited about Steven Moffat (of COUPLING creator fame, not to mention Doctor Who episodes Blink, The Girl In the Fireplace, Silence in the Library....ect...) taking over from Russel Davies as showrunner and head writer. As far as I am concerned we have even better WHO to look forward to!

Also, did I mention Karen Gillan's hotness?! We may have a contender for hottest companion to go up against Billie Piper...

[QuickTidal]

Okay, so got up early this morn and watched The Waters Of Mars. A very, very dark episode, but a great one nonetheless.

Spoiler

I really liked that the villain here was a viral Mars life form that gets to you by touching you with water. That's just creepy. I also really liked the whole "some moments in time are fixed" which the Doctor turns around later by realizing that he isn't meant to die there so he can help. I also really liked that we see shades of the Doctor from pre-Donna and Martha era (Runaway Bride-angry-I-don't-care Doctor) when he was still angst ridden about Rose, at the end of this one, and Adelaide calls him on it claiming he has too much power. She says it's wrong, and you can see that in a way, but you can see he was fed-up and just wanted to save them too. It was a nice dichotomy to watch actually. The Doctor isn't infallible and can be decidedly human. Most of all we know that this is a preparation, an opening salvo if you will, to the final two specials and what I can only hope is a knockdown brawl with The Master when he returns! The Doctor needs to be ruthless if he is going to beat him, so I think we are seeing the beginning of his last stand. Love it!

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 17 November 2009 - 11:18 AM

[Dancer+]

I thought that The Waters of Mars was a good episode.

Discussion/Spoilers of what happened during the episode.

Spoiler

It was a novel and creepy idea but mostly I liked the whole time 'fixed in place' dilemma.

Favourite bits of the episode:
Seeing the Doctor disregarding the rules and playing on some of his darker emotions. Although I'm glad that it got repercussions.
The whole Ood disappearing at the end and the whole time might be breaking apart is a fascinating setup for the next special.
The three knocks is all you're getting bit.
The whole sense of foreboding throughout the special and not quite knowing where it was going to go.

I'm now officially psyched for the next special with the return of the Master. I can't help but feel the Master will be the one knocking for the fourth time although there is plenty of scope still left for surprise. It sounds like it could be really something special.

So overall it was an enjoyable and fairly atypical episode.