Doctor Who Thread

andyman949 wrote:

I quite enjoyed it, was infinitely better than the first episode anyway.

I preferred the first episode as it did have some funny bit's but like I said before I will keep going this time unlike with smith.

Echoing Andy's thoughts that Into The Dalek was better than Deep Breath. Some of the effects were not great, though, and there's still room for improvement. The episode felt derivative of

Into The Dalek:

I actually quite liked the first two episodes, although I am comparing them with the last few Moffat episodes and he probably needs to go. So far, Oswald seems better written than she was, and Capaldi is a much better Doctor than Smith.

Regarding Jay's hatred of the Victorian crime crew, I actually liked the fact that Vastra and Jenny got a little married-couple-bickering comic relief (although I could have done without the super-contrived kiss). Now Strax needs to show that he can do serious - he's plain tiresome as is. As for the "good Dalek" being repeated, I was just happy that they didn't go for the soppy happy ending - seems like they're going to go for more dubious finishes with Capaldi, which is A Good Thing. Also liked Clara not "hilariously" returning a week after her supposed date.

I prefer Moff to RTD but I really think he's proven himself incapable of working on Who and Tenderloin at the same time.

Trouble is, I didn't like RTD either.  For completely the opposite reasons, actually: RTD's storylines were overwrought and bloated, while Moffat can't even string a storyline across two episodes.  And both of them have over-emotional moments - something that, happily, seems to be relatively rare so far this series.

Moffat's original Weeping Angels episode is still one of the best new episodes, and probably (and rightly) got Moff the head writer job on his own.  But he really needed to stick to one-offs, and let someone else chip in with the finales.

Oh - and regeneration was handled much better in the first episode of the series than the drawn-out mess that was Tennant's.

RTD delivered something closer to the Doctor Who that I grew up with than Moff has managed so far. It seems to me that the show is much less sci-fi these days in favour of something closer to an off-kilter fairy tale. Whilst I agree it's time for Steven Moffat to go (and hopefully return to a one-episode-per-series writer, at which he shone (though I dislike 'Blink', 'The Empty Child' and 'The Doctor Dances' are amazing episodes)), I'm struggling to think of someone who could successfully take over.

...Yep, that one can get stuffed.

Robots of Sherwood was excellent. Just pure fun from start to finish, and I was so glad Robin Hood just ended up genuinely being Robin Hood.

Seconding Drunka - seconding Drunka so hard. My beef was that The Doctor's character wasn't that consistent with the previous two episodes. Other than that, proper silly Doctor Who like Mama used to make. I was also glad to see the return of the 'Doctor visits a historical figure' style of story. Like those.

I'm going to have to defend my opinion, I guess. Really, though, it boils down to ZJ's point: the new Capaldi grumpy taciturn Doctor is the best thing about this series, and here they had him squabbling with Robin Hood like a child. I could just about have taken the spoon-fighting, although it seemed much more Matt Smith than Capaldi, but the argument scene in the dungeon? It's character undevelopment, and completely inconsistent writing.

Also I bloody hated the Robin Hood character, and unlike Drunka, I did not like him being the genuine article as opposed to someone brainwashed or something. The only good part of the entire episode was the surprisingly up-close murder scene near the beginning.

We've only seen the man for three episodes, how can you possibly say he's "inconsistent" already? He's a complicated character in a fun, family show. He can have moments of darkness when he's dealing with his arch enemies the space Nazis but that doesn't mean he can't be a bit sillier when dealing with robin hood.

Him attempting to be silly clashes hopelessly with the way Capaldi was playing him - raging spitting angry Scotsman. The two felt inconsistent. It's less a matter of time, more of acting style.

The spoon fight, like I said, actually worked okay, despite its sillyness; so it can be done. But it wasn't in the dungeon scene.

But that's the thing; nobody is always angry or always happy. It makes sense for a character to be full of rage one week and a bit silly the next, especially an eccentric, millennium-old alien. Also, is worth noting that prior to this story we'd only seen him immediately after regeneration and selling with the Daleks, so of course he was darker then.

I didn't like that episode - I've not been a fan of the New Who episodes where the Doctor interacts with British figures of import from history (Shakespeare, Dickens...) and this episode didn't change my mind.

Next week's looks good though.

The token "scary / creepy" episode?

I prefer the token scary/creepy episodes to the token "here's a figure from British history, and he/she is KOOKIER THAN YOU'D THINK!"

Robin was exactly as cooky as I thought, and was no better for it.

Listen was absolutely amazing. Really creepy, really different... I hope the whole thing is never touched on again, as the idea that there might not have been a monster at all is incredible.

Inevitably, though, they'll return and lose all their mystery.

I really liked it - the best episode so far this series.

I think the point was that there wasn't anything at all, wasn't it? Anyway, I agree - Moffat showing that he's still on top of his game with the one-offs. Could have done without the soliloquy from Clara at the end, but that's true of all the series' soliloquies.

Standard doctor who writing. Sounds alright the first time, in the moment, but when you listen again...

I think there was something. That didn't look like one of his school friends when the blanket came off...

I forgot about that. Yep, definitely not a schoolfriend there... but I think that the Doctor is just scared of the dark nonetheless.

They'll probably come back to it - there was no mention of the eccentric lady in "heaven", so I reckon this episode's connection to the overarching series plot is that those monsters have something to do with her. A shame, considering this episode is infinitely more interesting if they leave it ambiguous.

Hopefully they're just gonna let this episode stand alone, at least until a later season. The Danny Pink (silly name) stuff tied it into the overall plot enough, I thought.

By the way, I do like how, in Danny Pink, they seem to have finally made a a recurring male character who isn't (a) the Doctor, (b) evil, or (c) a bit pathetic.