Who ramblings

[karohemd]

Up until this evening, I've been mildly peeved with the negativity with which various classic Who fans were moaning about the new series because I quite enjoyed most of it. Then again, I didn't grow up with Dr Who as the old series were never shown in Germany (no idea why, as other TV series like HHGTTG did make it over) so I'm missing most of the background and don't get the "it used to be so much better in the old days" thing.
It was all just a bit much and dull at the same time. The non-regeneration was to be expected but still a bit of a letdown. The German character was clearly a spy because she spoke German with an English accent and English with a fake German accent. DonnaDoctor *really* annoyed me. I didn't mind Donna so far but this really didn't work. All the "plot twists" and getoutofjailfrees (especially Cpt. Jack's) were just too convenient and the episode looked like all the budget had been blown on the visuals and then they realised they might actually need a little bit of story writing as an afterthought. The "human" Doctor seemed only to be there to satisfy those fans who wanted him to get it off with Rose. If the Doctor had to "completely wipe her mind", how come she actually knows what's going on, can use a mobile and all that? Whatever.

Two cool bits:
- German speaking Daleks
- Davros was a brilliant megalomaniac, even if he reminded me a bit of Palpatine this time.

The future? The Doctor will need a new companion and Torchwood will have Martha Jones (yay) and Mickey (boo, never liked him).

Comments

[mrph.livejournal.com]

I did like the Daleks speaking German (I now want to see them invading other countries too, just for the dialogue). And Davros is always worth watching...

[madwitch.livejournal.com]

Jack not being able to die is an old plot twist, though.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Not being able to die is one thing, getting out of the incinerator another but I guess he used his sonic wristwatch (or whatever that thing is).

[angusabranson.livejournal.com]

Geting out of the incinerator but STILL FULLY CLOTHED!!!!

I'm sure his clothes aren't immortal too...

[madwitch.livejournal.com]

Captain Jack naked would have been a bad plan.

But I've seen much worse in the original series. :-)

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

It clearly is a Greatcoat of Ultimate Protection (which in itself is inert). Remember, it had already survived being buried for several hundred years.

[cleosilver.livejournal.com]

The german Daleks were cool.

[commlal.livejournal.com]

I knew you would love the German Daleks :D

[spencerpine.livejournal.com]

I quite liked it.

Graham

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Yay German Daleks!

[xambrius.livejournal.com]

The reason many fans of classic Doctor Who moan about current Doctor Who is because current Doctor Who doesn't feel like a continuation of classic Doctor Who. It feels like a completely different show that pays only lip service to the continuity of the old show. It's just one step removed from being a "re-imagining" like the difference between classic Battlestar Galactica and new Battlestar Galactica.

--
Tim Harris
The Seeker
Time Lord

[nevla.livejournal.com]

...but then i know some serious die-hard fans of Doctor Who who love the new series just as much.
Okay, the visuals and production is way better than the old days, but the stories are still pretty daft!
It's fun :)

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

That's been my opinion, too. Also, it needs to cater kids so needn't be that high-brow, anyway.
The last episode just felt far too forced so RTD could tie up all his loose ends. There was too much which just ended up being confusing. And I really didn't like DoctorDonna but I've been OK with Donna as companion.

[chrisvenus]

I'm surprised you've only thought this after this last season finale. I thought the last one was awful for that as well ("everybody think good thoughts at the doctor at the same time!"). huge deus ex machinae are what I expect with the season finales these days. I think the second series was probably the best in terms of that really (season one had the whole openign the tardis thing going on).

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

I think this time it was just too much.

[ua-meruti.livejournal.com]

Personally I would have liked to have seen Doctor Donna carry on as a full blown timelord (though without irritating "am I bovvered lines"). Then they could do a plot involving them returning to the blasted remains of Gallifrey so that she can grow a new TARDIS. Intermingle this with a load of flashbacks of the Doctor's experience of Time War instead of merely constantly alluding to it (and perhaps with cameos for Paul McGann as the eighth doctor).

I did also love the German-speaking Daleks, though they did appear to be speaking it even though there were no humans nearby to hear them. Only trouble I had was that though I can get by in a fair few languages, German sadly ain't one of them (I can count to 10 and ask if you speak German and that's about it), so perhaps subtitles might have been an idea - then they could have done without the recourse to English and making the obviously English actress playing that German UNIT agent have to put on a crap "German" accent.
I did love the Doctors reaction as he was shown all the weapons of mass destruction his friends were preparing to unleash.

Captain Jack's "get out of jail free card" is discussed in the extras on the Torchwood second season DVD. It's best used as he is forced to lose everything he holds dear, but that can't really happen in the Doctor Who like it can in Torchwood (where he has been forced to bury many of his colleagues). I think his magically not burning coat was because he wasn't actually thrown into the furnace, rather was thrown into the chute that lead to the furnace.
what I still want to know about Captain Jack is how he got himself from the space station where Rose resurrected him after the Dalek attack to the late 19th century where Torchwood found him with a bottle sticking out of his stomach.

Oh and when we saw Freema Agyeman initially trying to read her German lines in Confidential was quite amusing - I suspect she didn't do German at school :)

Exterminieren

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Oh, I thought there were meant to be subtitles for the German bits that I didn't get on iPlayer. I can't tell what daleks are saying in English most of the time.

Since Jack wasn't burned himself, merely sweaty, the incinerator was only about 60 degrees when he escaped.

Re: Exterminieren

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

I was actually surprised there weren't any subtitles on TV, either, especially as it wasn't that easy to understand because it was spoken by English actresses.

Re: Exterminieren

[chrisvenus]

So what was said roughly? I mean, the gist of it was relatively obvious from context but I was vaguely wondering...

Re: Exterminieren

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

see my reply to commlal in the previous post.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

The German UNIT agent did a slightly better job at speaking German than Martha but it was still rubbish. They could have found a German actress for that role.

[inquis.livejournal.com]

At least Martha was quite clearly using German as a foreign language, hence no attempt to make her sound German.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Oh definitely. Judging by ua_meruti's comment above, she didn't know German at all when learning the lines so that was actually a rather good effort.

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

OK, I'll try to be brief - never my strongest suit. Basically, I liked it. Some very classy bits, some very irksome bits, some very Russell T Davies bits, which - like em or loathe em, are part and parcel of the Way the New Who tends to be written.
The thing that irked me most is a long-standing nagging annoyance: the New Who is predicated on the basis that all the Timelords bar the Doctor (and the Master), and all but one or two daleks were annihilated, irrevocably and irreversibly. And yet every bloody time they want a Big Nasty Baddie, yet another loophole is introduced, and the Daleks are back. Again.

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with Daleks once in a while; I was positively pleased to see Davros, but this whole Time War business is getting laughable. It served a purpose at first: to provide a clean slate so that newcomers to the programme were not burdened by a lack of knowledge of prior Who knowledge. Fine. But it should either be consistent to its own rules, or else unravelled completely, and restore some additional Gallifreyan presence to the Cosmos.

Fair play to Catherine Tate, I was sceptical in the extreme about her as a companion, but I thought she did good, and her ending was quite poignant for my money.

Oh,PS. German accents: get over it. It's for a predominantly British and American audience, and you should have heard some of the American accents by British "actors" in Classic Who. I'm not even a Yanksider, and it used to make me wince!