Doctor Who

[coalescent]

1. How the hell did they keep that secret?

2. Should I know what that key-thing is?

3. When was the other time that someone tried to steal the Earth?

4. What was with all the Bad Wolf text last week, then?

5. Did anyone else find that a lot of dialogue was drowned out by the music?

6. Are there lots of planets in a giant atmosphere, or does each planet still have its own atmosphere? (i.e. is this a Ragged Astronauts situation?)

7. The bees thing strikes me as cheap, given that it's really happening.

8. So the Shadow Proclamation isn't, you know, an actual proclamation then? It's some kind of secret space UN thing?

Comments

[azureskies.livejournal.com]

They didn't. I've heard rumours about what happens. It's... not good.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

They kept it secret enough that it wasn't all over the press, which I'd have thought it would be.

To be fair, the current speculation here is what sort of get-out clause they're going to use, not who the new actor is going to be.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Yeah, us too

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I think you're right about the hand and the DNA bollocks. At the moment I'm mostly hoping that there's going to be some spin on the Donna-dies-leading-to-reset hints that makes it not utterly predictable.

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

"It" = the regeneration? I too have heard rumours, along with Really Bad Speculation about what might follow. As you say, the only question is the scale of the reset button about to be hit.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Yes, it equals the regeneration. I do not want to know your rumours! I will want to know, after next week, whether or not they were true.

It can't be a worse cop-out than last year, surely?

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

It can't be a worse cop-out than last year, surely?

I assume that RTD will want to do everything bigger this year, including the cop-outs.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I pointed out to Nic that the line in the episode was that "the most faithful companion will die". She pointed out in return that we could therefore end up with a situation where multiple companions are fighting to be the one to sacrifice themselves for the Doctor ...

[cellardoor28.livejournal.com]

I have heared a rumour which will actually make me throw my tv out the window. What's worse is I think it may be true. Oh dear.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

I haven't heard any such rumours so I'm avoiding them!

[predictivememo.livejournal.com]

As you say, the only question is the scale of the reset button about to be hit.

The Total Bollocks Overdrive's RESET button, let's face it, won't be subtle or unobtusive...

[pikelet.livejournal.com]

Holy shitting fuck.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

You enjoyed it, then? :-p

[pikelet.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I would go that far - mine is an agnostic 'holy shitting fuck'.

[pikelet.livejournal.com]

Also, re: your third question - Daleks, in 'The Dalek Invasion of Earth'. That's why he's not really surprised when everyone starts blathering at him about Daleks on the scanner. Re: your second question, no, and I think it's just one of many awful attempts at shoehorning in Far Too Much.

But still. Y'know. Holy shitting fuck.

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

I'm mostly going with "many awful attempts", less with the "holy shitting fuck".

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

Re 3, surely the answer is that Earth/Ravolox was stolen by the Time Lords in "Trial of my patience a Time Lord"? In "Dalek Invasion of Earth", they didn't actually manage to steal it, right?

[pikelet.livejournal.com]

I think the line was that 'someone tried to move the Earth once before'. I'm sure someone with iPlayer access can confirm/deny.

[veggiesu.livejournal.com]

Yep, the line was "tried to move the Earth". *snerk*

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

I can't believe you attained snerkage from that line. Well done. :-)

[veggiesu.livejournal.com]

I can't believe you can't believe it... but thank you :-)

[secritcrush.livejournal.com]

It was a terrible episode and a big reset button is sooo in the future.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I thought it was quite fun, in a completely overblown way. But I agree that a reset has to be coming -- (a) I don't believe they'd really manage to keep it secret, and (b) I don't believe RTD is able to do a finale without a reset!

[sharp-blue.livejournal.com]

I suspect that it'll be a mega-reset that undoes the entire Time War.

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

I'm in two minds about that. On the one hand, it'd mean we get gazillions of Daleks back in creation as a whole (along with Gallifrey, admittedly): hardly a net victory. But on the other, the Doctor did say that the war was "time-locked" - for the first time, I think. And where there's a lock, there's a key.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

ahhhh that's what plot device key is for..

But how on earth did Harriet bleeding Jones know about it - the secret to the restoration of the Time Lords one assumes!

[sparkymark.livejournal.com]

Saying RTD likes reset buttons is like saying Adam was the "big bad" in Buffy season 4: it's possible to get so addicted to the structure that one sees it even when it is being consciously inverted.

The good old science fiction reset button: everything back to normal...it isn't a reset button, there's always this science fiction thing [where] plots go back to square one...but of course it isn't: the Master dies, the Joneses are destroyed, Martha leaves, all as a result of that year. -- Last years finale podcast commentary

...which people never find convincing when I quote it (including myself to an extent), but compare it to Harry Kim and Chief O' Brien getting killed and replaced by pod people and nobody, even them, giving a damn that it happened by the next episode.

By the way Ruth says you might want my old telly: see my LJ.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

No, I don't find that convincing, because the scale of the changes introduced by the plot vastly outweighs what is allowed to endure. I'm equally sure that, for instance, Donna will die or leave, the Doctor/Rose relationship will reach a new status quo, but the fact that I don't really believe that -- for instance -- Harriet Jones will be lastingly dead rather undermines the process of getting there.

TV: Tempting, but ours is already a fairly decent size, so we'll pass, thanks. :)

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Why don't you believe harriet Jones is dead? Can you see Moffat getting much out of her?

I am interested to see if Rose really really does die this time.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Whatever the reset is, I think it's going to take us back to a state before the Daleks stole the Earth. Because it's not just Harriet Jones; they didn't let large-scale death and destruction stand last year, and I don't think they'll let it stand this year, either.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

1. Precisely. So it's totally not happening.

2. It's big, it's red, and it's a button. IMHO.

3. 'The Dalek Invasion of Earth' in William Hartnell's era, aka the film 'Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150AD'.

4. It made no sense and was bollocks.

5. Yes. We're getting very very old.

6. From what Jack said, there was a forcefield round the Earth. I suppose it could go around all the planets, and then they could in fact sail between them in a Bob Shaw stylee -- which would be cool, but seems a bit unlikely.

7. I don't really see how that makes it cheap. It's just picking up on something and stitching it into the fiction. As "ripped from the headlines" stories go it's not exactly rivalling Spooks.

8. Apparently. Run by Albino people supported by Space Rhinos. Who knew?

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

7. Because in real life it's probably something caused by human activity, and it's been presented as Not Our Fault.

[predictivememo.livejournal.com]

3. 'The Dalek Invasion of Earth' in William Hartnell's era, aka the film 'Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150AD'.

TY for saving me a trip to IMBD, I wasn't sure and was gonna ask...

[loveandgarbage.livejournal.com]

On 5 - every week I find that. Every week. Murray Gold's amp obviously only has an 11.

[ajr.livejournal.com]

2. No. It's obviously the reset button device for the next episode.

4. I think they just did that as a way of saying "Look! Rose is back!" to the Doctor, rather than to actually *mean* anything.

6. There's a forcefield keeping in air and heat. So, the latter, I'd say.

7. It's not like things from real life have never been used in fiction before. The worst I can say is that if/when we eventually find out what's happening with bees, it'll date the episode really badly.

8. "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

[e-pepys.livejournal.com]

Although it was rather disappointing to see the Shadow Proclamation as one woman and a few rhinos, I don't think the name is unreasonable. If there were a proclamation, one would expect an enforcement body. It often happens that an organisation is metonymically called after the treaty that sets it up (though I can't think of any good examples right now: maybe "Bretton Woods" referring to the IMF and World Bank).

So, when the Doctor has invoked the Shadow Proclamation, he was referring to the text. This time he visited the organisation that enforces it.

There are far worse things to complain about in this episode, like what they did to Harriet Jones.

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

Warsaw Pact.

[e-pepys.livejournal.com]

Zactly, a much better example.

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

When UNIT, Toshwood, Sarah Jane and Harriet Jones were brought together I was reminded of the episode of Futurama where Al Gore's team to defend the fabric of the space time continuum was brought together ;- Gary Gygax, Nichelle Nichols, Stephen Hawking and the IBM chess computer (deep blue?).