Doctor Who Series Three Discussion (spoilers)

[MireGoji]

Well, in answer to the 'lightweight' RTD episodes, I think the first part of the season finales have always had a slightly more comic touch to them than the second part. For example, Bad Wolf had the likes of Big Brother, the Anne-droid, et cetera. Army of Ghosts had stuff like daytime chat show Trisha Goddard and "I'm in Love with a Ghost". So I think that's just RTD's style - have comic touches in part one and then really ramp up the darkness in the season finale.

Personally, I thought the Toclafane descending en masse to "Voodoo Child" by Rogue Traders was in a way, kinda haunting - such an upbeat song when a tenth of the world's population are being killed.

As for the Master himself, okay, yeah, I'd say he was a bit too unhinged. Remember, though, he saw battle himself in the Time War, even seeing the Dalek Emperor capture the Cruciform (obviously Not A Good Thing), and he legged it, re-wrote his DNA, became the Master once again after who-knows-how-long, gets shot and regenerates (not to mention the implied madness of staring into the Time Vortex when he was young). But despite the jokes, he's still dangerous.

I'm wondering who the Toclafane really are. I have a theory, certainly, but I wonder if they'll end up like the Beast - never knowing who they really are? Oh, and I did like Cloudbase - sorry, the Valiant.

Saturday, June 30th. Here come the drums...

[TheMaster]

[The Shadow]

[Robert Saint John]

[TheMaster]

[jrichreturns]

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Uh yeah spoilers below, dude...















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Okay what's with the woman at the end, I think its' the Rani maybe, who else could have made that ring? The Master wasn't a scientist who dabbled in biotech, she was. But, I think the Master is stored in the ring, if his mind could be stored in a watch, and heck, his body was destroyed before in the movie.

[StevenScrivello]

^ I too initially thought of the Rani. I also think it could be Mrs. Saxon, though I see no reason for her to even go near the Master, because, y'know, she shot him.

[Robert Saint John]

I think: The Woman was Lucy Saxon, and the Master and she had this planned should things ever go wrong. He would store his essence in the ring, and leave it up to her to retrieve him.

All theoretical though. RTD says he did this to leave it open ended should a future production team ever want to continue the story of these characters.

BTW, here's my summary of Last of the Time Lords, in pictures (also posted on my LJ and over at OG):

[TheMaster]

[Shonokin]

[emeGoji]

[Shonokin]

[Robert Saint John]

I could have almost tolerated the Tinkerbell ex Machina thing had it just been executed differently. The "Martha spent a year spreading the word" thing was almost clever, certainly unexpected. But the *execution* was terrible, and pairing it with glowing, floating Doctor Christ was just awful. And then to rewind everything was adding insult to injury. If I'd written that and gotten to that point, I'd either have gone back and not left the world so decimated (so that I didn't have to rewind in the first place, and just make Earth dealing with it part of the ongoing story) or... nah, just don't ever hit the Reset Button. It's a cheat.

I can't believe this is the same guy who wrote "Gridlock", "Tooth & Claw" or other shows like "The Second Coming". He's better than this, and I think he knows enough about the principles of good SF/F writing than to do this. It was just lazy excess. He's done too much good for the show to deserve the boot, but he needs to lay off the big epic conclusions, the anagrams, the by-the-numbers season structure and the fake emotional button pushing, and simply focus on enabling his writers (including himself) to tell good stories.

(aside: look how well the death & ressurrection of Gamera in G2 was handled; sure, it felt slightly cheezy, but it wasn't embarrassing and I never thought "Cheat!")

I'm sure next season will be his last, and I'd like to see him go out with style and leave a good platform for the next producer to work with. His approach this season was like too much icing on a cake, style over substance.

I know a lot of DW fans and the British public in general are giddy over what they saw the past few weeks, but a year from now I think they'll look back and wonder what was so great about it. It's just bad drama, and I don't think it's even tolerable for drama aimed at the youngins. Not only did the cheats in LotTL erase a lot of the impact of what had happened in the stories that had come before it in the season, but it minimizes the tension that can be achieved in future stories as well.

At least TardisRoseGod didn't have the same effect and, in fact, I'd argue that at least it had consequences that were interesting. The only "consequences" of the events of LoTL were that Martha's family was shaken up, and we were certainly never made to care about them as we were Mickey and Jackie.

BBC is in a position right now where they're supposed to be doing across the board budget tightening. I suspect if DW had to take a 10% cut, they'd make up for it by focusing on the drama, not the flare.

[Robert Saint John]

[Kailem]

Oh Jesus God no. :puke:

Is RTD just trying to drive the show into the ground before he leaves? Because by all accounts he seems to be taking a pretty good stab at it.

Seriously, why the hell didn't he make Sally Sparrow from Blink the new companion?! Everyone wanted her back, but no, instead he goes and chooses Catherine bloody Tate, the woman we all thanked our lucky stars wasn't being made a full-time companion after The Runaway Bride! Deary, deary, deary me.

I really don't know what else to say. This is just....urgh. But hey, at least we'll have a ton of guest stars to look forward to as well!

Oh wait....urgh.

[emeGoji]

[Robert Saint John]

[lhb412]

[Shonokin]

[Robert Saint John]

[emeGoji]

[MireGoji]

Last of the Time Lords. And I thought it was going so well. Martha's year-long round-the-world trip, the attempted overthrow of the Valiant, the revelation of the Toclafane, the really 900-year-old Doctor (I think one of the more disturbing ideas of thie new series).

I have to agree, the Archangel-resurrected Doctor bit was a deus ex machina too far. I mean, okay, Rose the Time Goddess in The Parting of the Ways was a deus ex machina, but at least there was some forewarning to it by showing the Heart of the TARDIS in Boom Town. With Last of the Time Lords, it seemed completely random.

As much as I hate to use an old cliche, it certainly applies: "There should've been another way."

Question: if Jack destroying the Paradox Machine causes time to rewind to just after the US President was killed, then wouldn't the TARDIS console still be the Paradox Machine? That said, we don't know how much time passed between the end of the Valiant sequence and dropping off Jack.

Mind you, I thought the Master's refusal to regenerate was a very neat touch. Not only did it rob the Doctor of complete victory, but there's the potential - as shown by the ring - for him to return again and really twist the knife into the Doctor.

As for Catherine Tate... well, I'll wait to see how that turns out. Until then, there's always Voyage of the Damned to look forward to.

[TheMaster]

Its Love Boat UK...err I mean the 4th season of Doctor Who, filled with all your favorite celebrity guest stars and improbable plot resolutions! Wet yourself with delight as Charro takes a recurring role! She'll be joining soulless techno queen Kylie Mynogue, One of the Spice girls and the corpse of Charles Nelson Riley! Yes much like a John Waters film, it all comes out great in the end and who cares about real drama! And when you look away we'll throw in the Daleks again or do fanboy nods like saying "brigadeer" or "jellybabies!" And the zany old Capn Jack will be back, hornier than a drunk doberman!

[Shigamado]

Does anyone know if there is a U.S. Dr. Who website for us yanks?

[Robert Saint John]