The Sound of Drums

[coalescent]

[Poll #1008791]

Other posts: despotliz here, white_hart here, andrewducker here, iainjclark here, nhw's roundup of links here (recursion ahoy!), whatho here, butterfly here, saxonb here, communicator here.

Comments

[frandowdsofa.livejournal.com]

The Master watching the Teletubbies!

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

I count it as something of a miracle that I got here ahead of nhw with this comment: I assume that was a deliberate homage to the Master's appearance in The Sea Devils (1972), watching and appreciating The Clangers.

[nwhyte]

Damn you, Sleight!! Some of us have children who need to be put to bed, which takes considerably more time after they sneak in and watch the end of episodes like that!!!!!

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

Bwahahaha!

[frandowdsofa.livejournal.com]

Sorry guys. Read this: http://cpt-buggernuts.livejournal.com/169004.html?#cutid1 and NOTE THE TIME

.

[cpt-buggernuts.livejournal.com]

I wondered where all the people I didn't know were coming from.

[ajr.livejournal.com]

Flying aircraft carrier fortress sky island thing

Definite shades of Captain Scarlet there, I thought.

[andrewducker]

It's clearly the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier:

[nmg.livejournal.com]

I agree - thought that at the time.

[bookzombie.livejournal.com]

Which given that Bryan Hitch did early production design on New Who and drew the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier in The Ultimates this could even be a reference...

[snowking.livejournal.com]

Blatantly Skybase. Shield Helicarriers only have one runway. :P

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

I was going to do a post of my own, but this seems the perfect place instead: it seemed to me to sum up all the good and bad of RTD episodes without having that extra bit of kick-ass his previous two season finales did. And the old-age makeup for Tennant just looked fake, like an obvious prosthetic - compare the wonderful job done on Tom Baker in The Leisure Hive25 years ago.

[andrewducker]

Absolutely. Had some lovely bits in it, and some awful bits, and in the hands of a better director would have been great.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

I pretty much agree, except I think there was also too much convenient deus-ex-machina magical tech, but I've pretty much accepted that with Who. Were the spherical aliens with kids' voices supposed to be menancing and sinister? They failed to be.

[andrewducker]

The thing is - I felt they could have been, with different direction. Their lines could have been read 10% more seriously and been 500% scarier.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It's the same thing with the little girl in Family of Blood.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

Definitely.

[fba.livejournal.com]

My heart sunk when I realised that Graham Harper wasn't directing all three parts of the finale...

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

I still haven't forgiven Graham Harper for allowing Roger Lloyd Pack to overact his little heart out as John Lumic.

[fba.livejournal.com]

Well given how awful the source material was I can't imagine anyone else who could have made RotC/AoS remotely watchable (and despite the bad script and RLP's scenery chewing I actually enjoyed the episodes, especially watched as a single unit).

Simm's performance in The Sound of Drums was terribly uneven, I do hope he is toned down in the finale and actually has some menace.

I'm with you on Gallifrey though - I like the way they tapped into a post-Hogworts styling but still kept the mythos.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Simm's performance in The Sound of Drums was terribly uneven

This may be the first time we have agreed on anything about Doctor Who, ever!

[fba.livejournal.com]

Martha > Rose too surely?

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Oh, good point.

Are you finding this as unnerving as I am?

(I also think season three is the best season, overall.)

[fba.livejournal.com]

(I also think season three is the best season, overall.)

We may agree on this too. S1 had a lot of feet-finding and S2 had Rose being calf-eyed and annoying while S3 is, IMO, is mainly solid with occasional flashes of brilliance. Moffat is writing another two parter in S4 and there are hints that he may be doing our-universe Cybermen (i.e. more creepy and manipulative than stompy - you've still got my video of Tomb of the Cybermen which would give you an idea of what Cybermen *can* be like). I'd really like to see Moffat tackle some Classic monsters.

[fba.livejournal.com]

You know that bit in 'Last of the Timelords' that didn't suck (Martha/Tom/DoctorTurncoat capturing a Toclafane)? Graham Harper directed that bit as the main director for the block had been hospitalised. I also hear he is directing five episodes next year. This makes me happy.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

It was rotten. I ticked GOOD for Simm's little face though which I liked regardless of its totally inappropriate nature.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

You know, until I had to answer this poll I hadn't realised how much I disliked some aspects of this episode. It was all so... Unoriginal. Unsurprising. Unbelievable. Unfunny and unscary.

[truecatachresis.livejournal.com]

I did enjoy it, but it suffered, again, from being one script edit and good direction away from being actually, genuinely, good.

[majuran.livejournal.com]

"I'm not going to kill him, I'm going to save him"

I couldn't help thinking that someone was going to have to step up and be Giles at that point...

[wychwood]

Flying aircraft carrier fortress sky island thing:

Neither GOOD! nor BAD! but TOTALLY AWESOME!!eleventy

*is a sucker for that sort of retrofuturism*

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

I'm baffled by the people who didn't like it - why were they watching Doctor Who in the first place? had their remote control got lost?
Honestly if you didn't like Flying aircraft carrier fortress sky island thing then you have no business watching this show.