The Official MZ Doctor Who Thread!

[canofhumdingers]

[Dr Kain]

Actually, I'm not picking some random season number. Eight was the last good season of The Simpson, which is why I go with 8, but honestly, even that is kind of pushing it. I'd say a show would be smart to end at 5 or 6 because anything more is just going to lose people's interest and the writers will run out of ideas. Look at Supernatural. That show went downhill during its sixth season and is just a lifeless corpse that won't go away. Big Bang Theory stopped being funny around its seventh season. Highlander also fell apart during its sixth season. Hell, Duncan wasn't even in half of the season, which shows that the writers were completely out of ideas of what to do with his character by that point (and I believe the actor himself had lost interest too).

[lhb412]

^But Doctor Who is less like a traditional TV show and more like a Japanese Tokusatsu hero show: it constantly reboots itself and goes on for decades.

[Dr Kain]

[eabaker]

Well, Twice Upon a Time was an interesting episode. It was oddly lacking in plot, but in the end it had enough going on in terms of story that I didn't really mind.

As a whole, the Twelfth Doctor era has never really clicked with me as well as other modern Doctor eras, but that's not something I fault Capaldi for, by any means. But in the end, I was surprised how touched I was by certain key moments, above all else



which actually made me cry.

I did feel his goodbye speech was a little long. Well, could the Moffat tenure have ended without some bout of self-indulgence? Perhaps not.

[Henry88]

i was indifferent then i am indifferent now.

[Dr Kain]

We watched the Xmas special and this has got to be the best special since "A Christmas Carol." It balanced being dark and comedic. It had a lot of great scenes to it. It was touching. The dude they got to play the first Doctor was downright fantastic and seemed to know all of his mannerisms and snarkyness. Hell, it was probably the best regeneration episode of the modern episodes. I've yet to watch "The Tenth Planet" even though I own it on DVD, so I can't really say if they screwed up continuity with what they did, but who the hell cares, this episode was great. Probably the most fun episode I have had from this series in a long time. It kind of makes me want to watch the next season as it airs. On the other hand, it is sad to see Capaldi go, especially since he got gyped in quality. He still had a lot of fantastic episodes, but there really wasn't anything mind blowing as his predecessors had.

BTW, I totally want an episode where the first Doctor meets up with Me (or whatever her name was).

[Benjamin Haines]

I still need to get caught up on Series 10. The last episode of Doctor Who that I've seen was the 2015 Christmas special, The Husbands of River Song, which I thought was a wonderful final note in the nonlinear saga of River's character.

I am sad that Steven Moffat's role as showrunner is at an end now, and with it Peter Capaldi's tenure as the Doctor, but I suppose it's inevitable. I first got into Doctor Who in 2012 when one of my friends in college introduced me to the modern version of the show, and thanks to Netflix I was able to see everything from the Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, and Matt Smith eras and then keep up with Series 7 as the episodes premiered. That was right when Netflix was really taking off in popularity and I don't think I was the only new American viewer to get into the show during that time, as I saw a ton of students with Doctor Who clothes and merchandise during my final year in college. Publicity for the show in America seemed to reach a fever pitch that year with the 50th anniversary special, the casting of Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor, and Smith's final episode that Christmas. Smith was even featured on the cover of TV Guide magazine twice in 2012 and 2013. It's weird how that feels so long ago now.

I certainly liked most of the episodes from Russell T. Davies' time as showrunner but, just in terms of production quality and direction, I think that a lot of the Series 1-4 episodes have a very '90s or early 2000s feel to them, rather than feeling like a modern show. It doesn't hinder my enjoyment and I know that I'm talking about episodes that aired from 2005 to 2009 so that's not really much of a stretch but I do appreciate the more polished aesthetic and refined cinematography that has characterized Steven Moffat's years as showrunner. I also really like how Moffat seemed to mine the time-travel element of Doctor Who for storytelling potential moreso than Davies did. In Series 1-4, time-travel was mainly used to just get the Doctor and his companion from one adventure to the next with the episode plots mostly being unrelated to the time-traveling. Of the handful of episodes during those years that did utilize time-travel for plot or character development, many of them were actually written by Moffat (The Empty Child, The Girl in the Fireplace, Blink, Silence in the Library). Once Moffat took over as showrunner, that's when we started to get some really time-bending premises like Amy Pond's entire character arc for Series 5, the complex legacies of River Song and Clara Oswald, and story arcs like the cracks in the universe. None of it was flawless and I do think that Moffat's biggest weakness was his overreliance on bootstrap paradoxes to write his way out of a corner (The Big Bang and The Name of the Doctor being the two most egregious examples) but overall I think Series 5-9 were much better off with him in charge.

And while I'm excited to see what Jodie Whittaker brings to the role, I will miss seeing Peter Capaldi as the Doctor. He combined a sense of no-BS gravitas with the Doctor's natural eccentricities to create a truly unique take on the character and he has all the screen presence of the Doctor no matter what outfit he's wearing. Capaldi has become my favorite Doctor of the modern show and it'll be bittersweet when I watch Series 10 knowing that it's the end of his era.

[lhb412]

Tom Baker season 1 set coming out soon. I hope this means the entire classic series'll get season sets similar to New Who. I collected the classic DW DVDs for years, but when the releases started going out of print all over the place I felt it was pointless.

[Dr Kain]

[Dr Kain]

We've been watching the Xmas specials from the Smith and Capaldi seasons. I haven't actually watched them since they first aired.

Christmas Carol - Damn fantastic. Perhaps the best DW Xmas special ever. Michael Gambon is just fantastic and I love how the Doctor gets his idea to utilize the story.

The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe - Not bad, it has some touching moments, and I like the concept of the tree people, not to mention the hilarious scene between the trio of dumb soldiers with the mother. The ending kind of plays it too safe, but it works with the context of the story.

Snowmen - An excellent Xmas special with some really kick ass scenes like when the snowmen devour the workers and of course Clara's, "It's smaller on the outside." The effects work is well done, even the CGI is not bad.

The Time of the Doctor - This one is odd as it is very slow moving in the middle and the editing is not always the best. Not to mention the old make up on the Doctor looks pretty bad. Still, it is quite funny, with a lot of good scenes and ideas, such as the church scene, the Sylance remain creepy even when they're not doing evil things, and it is quite touching. Though, it pales in comparition to Tennant's regeneration episode.

Last Christmas - A really solid homage to Alien (plus I love, "There's a film called Alien? No wonder your planet is always being invaded.") while mixing it with a nice "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!". Nick Frost does an excellent job as Santa Claus, but once again, the old makeup for Clara (this time) is down right atrocious. A solid Xmas episode for being Capaldi's first.

[Dr Kain]

We watched the next two Xmas specials tonight.

The Husbands of River Song - Fantastic episode that gave an excellent send-off to one of the best side characters in the franchise. I will miss her, but it was time to go before they really got too far into contradictions. The best part of the episode is easily when the Doctor pretends to be amazed at the Tardis from the inside.

The Return of Doctor Mysterio - It's kind of dumb, but it's so damn fun. It's also kind of sad that it does a better Superman story than the actual DC cinematic universe. The dude who plays The Ghost continues to bring his bad acting from Dragonball Evolution with him, but at least you could tell he tried in this role. The creatures are kind of interesting as it's a nice continuation to what we saw in the last special, though I really wished they had shown us how the Doctor put the bald dude back together again. Probably the weakest special since The Doctor, The Widow, and the Wardrobe though.

[Dr Kain]

Finished up our Xmas specials with Twice Upon a Time tonight. This one is absolutely fantastic. Capaldi got a vastly superior send-off compared to Smith and this is probably the best special since Christmas Carol. It was fun, interesting, the WWI Xmas day stuff was heart warming, and most of all, the Harry Potter janitor Walter Frey dude was excellent as the first Doctor. The dude looks nearly identical to how Hartnell looked not to mention he managed to pull off the same mannerisms. I also loved the recreated Tardis for his Doctor.

So with that, we decided to go ahead and watch the Special Edition version of the new season's first episode and it was... quite underwhelming, honestly. The camera work was atrocious and I sometimes felt like I was watching a two hour long fight scene from a Bourne movie. The editing seemed to be a mess and the dialog was drowned out by the music and sound effects at times. All I wanted to hear from the Not-Predator tooth fairy was, "Winter is Coming." His whole plot didn't make a lick of sense. Though, he is in his teething phase, so he has a reason to be angsty.

On the other hand, the new Doctor had a lot of great lines as she was enjoyable, especially when she created a brand new sonic screw driver. She's full of energy (can't speak for her fashion sense though) and brought in a personality that makes her stand out from the previous iterations. Not sure how I feel about her three companions though.

[Dr Kain]

We watched the first two discs to the Peter Davison Blu-Ray set tonight, which included Castrovalva and Four to Doomsday. They were both enjoyable, though I feel like four episodes was too many for each story. They definitely needed to be three episodes, but not four. The first two episodes to Castrovalva were just so damn slow and a tad boring, but god damn were Parts 3 and 4 incredible. I actually wish most of the story was actually set in Castrovalva itself and the mystery regarding its layout. There was also an option on the BD to watch the episodes with updated CGI effects, but since this is the first time we were ever watching the episodes, we decided to stay with the way it was originally done. It gives me a reason to watch the show again in the future.

Although, I think the other issue with the beginning as Castrovalva was we had no idea who any of the characters were since it obviously starts out in the middle of a story. I guess the boy, Addrait (or something), is an alien with psychic abilities or something, while the one girl is also an alien but a technological wiz with the other being a normal stuck up Earthling. The dude playing The Master was really hamming up his acting though. Also, towards the end of Part 4 the Doctor for some reason has a stick of celery attached to his outfit, but no one even makes a mention of it one bit. That's kind of odd since it wasn't there earlier.

Four to Doomsday was also good, but I felt Part 3 was the episode that stalled the most. So the villain from the last arc was The Master and now we have The Monarch. They were quite original with their names by that point, weren't they? :-p

Seriously though, I liked the set up with them just observing the Doctor for a bit before introducing themselves and having a variety of ancient cultures being gathered there was really intriguing. The final confrontation with the Monarch was laughably dumb though and while I know it was the best they could do at the time, the scene of the Doctor out in space trying to get to the Tardis was so bad it was good.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed what I watched and look forward to continuing this set. It's also nice to actually watch some classic episodes back to back for a change.

[Dr Kain]

We watched Kinda on the Davison set today. I liked it quite a bit. It was very thought provoking and watching the one soldier guy descend into madness was absolutely hysterical. I loved how they referenced the place as being Paradise and then we had a snake demon and apples being used in it. Very nice symbolism there. The Doctor was quite quirky and I'm starting to see signs of Matt Smith's iteration in him (which means Smith was clearly influenced by Davison). This was also the first time I didn't want to out right murder Tegan, though not so much for Adric. God damn that little know it all "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!" needs to die! Just like with Castrovalva, we watched the regular version of the show with the cheesy looking rubber snake. It might look bad by today's standards, but I can only imagine how amazing people must have thought it looked back then. Of course, I also rewatched the scene with the CGI snake they added, which was incredible. They did a really outstanding job on that one, which makes me curious if they are putting in that much care with updated effects on everything.

Additionally, I watched most of the discs bonus features which had an interesting documentary about the episode, though I don't think that thing needed to be 35 minutes long. They also had this cool bit of the cast members from the show (and two others) watching the episodes and making commentary about it. The girl who played Nyssa also said this was her first time ever watching these ones. What was even cooler is that they showed the group the version with the CGI snake, so they were seeing that moment for the very first time. There were some weird BBC commercials on there that had a very polite voice over talking about upcoming shows and episodes along with a comparison feature where it shows you both the original and redone scenes side by side.

Overall, I'm looking forward to continuing this set tomorrow.

[Dr Kain]

We watched both The Visitation and Black Orchid today.

The Visitation was pretty good, I liked the concept of the alien monster even if the execution was not stellar and the thief guy was pretty cool. It was interesting, though quite simplistic in its approach compared to Kinda. Still enjoyable nonetheless even if it is probably the weakest of the episodes I have watched thus far. Tegan seems to be getting more tolerable while Adric remains pretty stagnant in his characterization.

Black Orchid, on the other hand, was down right phenomenal. It felt like a classic Universal horror film with how it played out that just happened to feature the Doctor in it. It was fun, the costumes used were gorgeous, the story was interesting, the actress who played Nyssa and her doppleganger was incredible in this one, and it was quite suspenseful in parts. Oh, and I absolutely loved the bit when the Doctor got himself locked inside the secret passageway. My only complaint deals with the BD itself as the video quality was quite atrocious at times in this one. No where near as good as how the other episodes have looked, especially the scene when the cast is inside of the police car.

Lastly, I picked this up at B&N today since I had a coupon and their BBC deal for $9. I now have all of the first and last episodes to every Doctor despite this one being a recreation:

[Dr Kain]

We watched Earthshock tonight. I really liked how the episode built up some of its mystery before it focused on the Doctor. Another thing that was quite intriguing was how they didn't actually show the Cybermen until the end of the episode, but something doesn't make sense with me. They wanted the scientists to stay away from their safe because they had a bomb in it to blow up Earth, but the bomb could only go off if someone opened up the safe. That seems a tad oxymoronic to me.

Anyway, the first episode was fantastic, the second episode had a nice little twist by changing the setting from the caves to a spaceship, but then things seemed to slow down to a grinding halt with countless amounts of dialog and exposition. Hell, the Doctor and Adric were wandering around the ship for like 10 minutes before something actually happened. It felt like the show was just meandering around because they had nothing else left to do for Part 2. Then there was the captain lady whose entire persona perplexed me. She wanted to go to Earth for her paycheck, but she never actually explained what she was getting paid for nor did I really understand her reasoning for being a dick towards the assisstant who turned out to be a traitor. Also, what does it matter if she gets to Earth in 5 minutes or in 5 hoours? They can't just not pay her for whatever she was getting paid for.

Moving on, the Cybermen were absolutely fantastic here. I really liked the way they did them, though once again, they did spend a little too much time with the leader expositing his whole plan to the Doctor. That felt a tad unneccessary. Nevertheless, their portrayal was top notch and it may be their best appearance in the old show (though, as of this moment I have not seen The Tenth Planet and Silver Nemesis, so that could change). If I could change anything in this episode surrounding the Cybermen, it would be putting in the Cybermen music from Tennant's second season. Nevertheless, I did like the tracks they played here, but honestly, other than the theme, the music is the show's weakest aspect most of the time.

Finally, of course there is the whole ending with Adric bringing an end to the dinosaurs. Spoiler warning if you have not watched this episode. That was cool because I am glad he is gone, yet at the same time, it was tragic as he was growing up a tad in this one. I didn't want to strangle him beyond the first few minutes. Is this the second time the Doctor ever lost a companion to the Cybermen? I recall the dude with the kilt in the Troughton era dying to from them. Overall, I still think Black Orchid is the better episode, but this one was on par with Kinda.

Oh, the little claymation thing in the extras was hilarious.

Only one story to go on this set, which is cool, but at the same time, I'm not ready to stop watching this Doctor right now. I wish they had just done the whole thing in one set so I can keep going. Ah well.

[Dr Kain]

And we have now concluded the first season of Peter Davison with Time-Flight, which I was fearing for the worst due to comments I've read. I liked it. Sure, it was kind of a plain episode, the effects were utter crap all around (and no updated effects for some reason), especially that really bad green screen bit that even I can do better than, the Jewish Arab sounding alien was quite pathetic, the smoke bubble things were dumb, and the Doctor just kept talking a lot of nonsense as if it was supposed to be sophisticated. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the build up as the beginning took its time to introduce the plot before throwing the Doctor into it (something that seemed common in this season) and the twist with the Master was great. It was quite entertaining in that regard, though, it was supposed to be the season finale, and that was a pretty pathetic end to what should have been a big showdown. What's funny is I had no issues with most of this stuff until I started typing up my thoughts and thinking about the episode. Regardless, I did enjoy it and that is what matters most.

I also watched a lot of the bonus features and even the cast didn't seem to like this one that much, which is odd considering "Kinda" was the episode that was apprently hated back then. However, one of the biggest things that I am confused about is what the hell is so friggin amazing about "The Concord?" Most of the making of feature was all about how amazing this "Concord" thing was and I still don't understand if that was the name of the company, the plane, or whatever. Is there supposed to be something special about this thing?

Anyway, overall, I really enjoyed watching this season as Davison was a fantastic Doctor. Sure, the episodes varied in quality from stories that could have been an episode shorter, shoddy effects, a wide array of acting on both ends of the spectrum, but I was highly entertained all of the way through. As for the companions, Adric was annoying, but he did go out with a bang, Nyssa was very underutilized (but still managed to be my favorite of the three companions thanks to Black Orchid), and Tegan was way too whiny most of the time. They could have been much better, yet, they could have been a lot worse.

My order rankings are as follow:

1. Black Orchid
2. Kinda
3. Earthshock
4. Castravolva
5. Four to Doomsday
6. Time-Flight
7. The Visitation

It's a shame that the rest of Davison's era isn't out on BD yet, as it would have been nice to just keep going, but whatever. On to... well whatever I end up watching next, which might be the firt three Doctor's premier and regeneration episodes as I await with anticipation of getting the first Tom Baker season for Xmas. I hope that season is as good as this one was.

[Dr Kain]

We watched The Tenth Planet tonight. It was a weird episode as I felt like I was watching "Dr Strangelove" but with Dr Who characters involved. Hell, for being the final Hartnell story, the Doctor did very little. I know in the documentary they said he got really sick during the filming of the third episode, but even in the other three episodes he did jack "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!". Clearly Hartnell did not like the idea of being replaced based on how he showed he just didn't give a damn about his performance in this story.

Anyway, I'm not sure what I think about the companions (my first experience with them), but the fact that Polly just goes and makes coffee for everything is hilariously sexist. I guess they had nothing better to do with her in this story.

The Cybermen were interesting, but compared to what I'm used to, they were pretty bad. By far the worst iterations of the characters, though that is to be expected given it is their very first appearance and the show's really low budge back then. They were an interesting concept in this episode as I did like how they were brought in through the snow storm and then just waltzed into the control room without anyone noticing them until it was too late. On the other hand, wow, they could die by getting their picture taken with a flash bulb, so threatening. :-p

The story itself was enjoyable, albeit not needing to be 4 episodes long (as has been my normal complaint). The animation for episode 4 was well done and it did make the Cybermen seem a lot more terrifying than they were in live action. The only thing is that it took me a few minutes to get used to it, so I mentally missed the first few minutes to the episode and had no idea why the general dude just pulled out a gun on everyone (I don't even recall seeing a gun on him in the first three parts). It is a shame that what may be the most quentissential episode to the franchise is lost as far as we know. The regenerating scene was cool though.

Tomorrow we are planning to watch the Power of the Daleks. I hope the thing can easily be followed in animation since the entire thing is going to be that way.

[The Shadow]

[sentaison]

[Dr Kain]

Well Power of the Daleks was quite enjoyable as I loved how the Daleks pretended to be controlled, which goes against everything that is Dalek.

There were a lot of really solid parts, especially when the Doctor was acting like a buffoon on purpose and the scene in the jail cell with the water. On the other side of the spectrum, there was no reason for this story to be 6 parts long. The whole thing could have been done in 4. Another issue was that you could see the one general's betrayal light years away. Nevertheless, as I said, it was enjoyable, I loved the way they approached the Daleks in this one, and the new Doctor was a joy to watch. It's a shame that the whole thing has to be animated since they erased the entire story, which is utter bullshit. I really wish I could go back in time to slap the hell out of the moron that made the decisions to erase these episodes.

Speaking of the animation, it was a mixed bag, as usual, though, watching the whole thing in animation instead of back and forth did keep me from getting distracted or taken out of the immersion. I just wished the characters didn't move like those on South Park. Also, there were quite a few errors around like one minute Polly and Ben are in the colony outfits, then they're back in their normal clothes, only to be wearing the colony ones again in the next scene. There was also another scene where two of the dudes started to fight each other, but there was like this sudden jump and they had switched sides with the one dude being escorted away. This also happened again later on when another fist fight broke out between two of the characters. That makes no sense whatsoever. The visuals themselves were pretty cool to look at though, especially the black levels (we watched it in B&W to match the final episode of The Tenth Planet).

Tomorrow we are going to start watching War Games (which I think is 10 parts).

[Dr Kain]

War Games was quite good, though as I have been saying with other episodes, it did not need to be 10 episodes. Hell, how many times did the Doctor and gang escape just to get captured again in this thing? It was funny at first when they got caught by the Germans and were being called English spies since that had just happened with the English soldiers, but then it happened several times more throughout the episode, not to mention the number of times they were captured by the main villains of the show. Jaime and Zoe have got to be some of the best companions I've seen in these older shows as they were well acted and well written. Hell, Zoe did more in that one scene with the Mexican resistance fighter than Polly did in the entire 10 episodes I saw that featured her and Tegan did in Davison's entire first season.

On the villains, I liked how they were being helped by a Time Lord, though I wish more had been divulged on him throughout the episode. He was pretty one dimensional aside from knowing who the Doctor was. The Security Chief and Warlord were pretty bland though. We never learned anything about their race nor why they are doing this aside from wanting to conquer the universe. Also, why did they all wear glasses? Clearly they don't live too far into the future since they don't have 2020 vision.

Nevertheless, I loved the entire concept of this story with them collecting soldiers and re-enacting various wars from our history. The sets they did for the time periods they showed were quite good too. A shame the foot soldiers to the villains all looked like Racer X and had really lousy looking guns. Sometimes they lights didn't even flash on them when they were firing.

Finally, the introduction to the Time Lords was unique, yet, you could tell they weren't sure what to really do with them yet. I loved the scene when they were showing off some of the Doctor's past enemies and his going ballistic was a nice contrast to their calm, heartless mannerisms. It also helps elevate why the Doctor never talked about his race before then. I'm curious to see how the ending of this one leads into Pertwee's first adventure, which we will probably be watching on Friday. It's nice that it's only 4 episodes long, though, I hope the pacing doesn't make it feel longer. Nevertheless, I do look forward to circling back to Troughton's era later on with the discs I recently picked up as I really like his iteration of the Doctor.

[The Shadow]

The First Doctor (William Hartnell) does mention some details about his and Susan's people & planet, and then there's the Monk (first seen in "The Time Meddler") he's the first as yet unnamed Gallifreyan we see after The Doctor and Susan. But the topics of the Doctor's people & planet are all pretty mysterious until later (namely "The War Games" but we do get to see more Time Lords in Pertwee's era, and then a lot more during Tom Baker's tenure).

Now that you've seen "The War Games" you can join in one of the recurring discussions of Doctor Who -- are the War Chief (the enemy Time Lord in "The War Games") and the Master the same person? Although if you haven't yet seen much of the original series appearances of the Master (primarily Pertwee's era) you might not get as much out of the discussion.

[Dr Kain]