Dr Who

Wasn't brilliant but there were one or two signs of encouragement. The classic look of the daleks returned with old style weapons and there was a sense of menace that was missing in the last few apppearances. No stair climbing either! The trip on the inside of dalek Rusty was not needed and the concept of his realising the daleks were evil just didn't tie in with the historical lore of the series. But guess thats nit picking. One thing that has annoyed me for the last few series and continues to do so are the insipid companions the Doctor has had since Martha Jones left. Jenna Colemans character just adds nothing and serves to over complicate the story with pointless themes. This week she was a school teacher...next week she is Maid Marion. More like Mr Ben than Dr Who!
Still not sure where Capaldi's Doctor is heading. The very first series of Dr Who with William Hartnell mentions that there was a darker, almost ruthless incarnation of the Doctor who will not think twice about killing anyone who gets in his way. The 50th anniversary mentioned that also. It will not be Capaldi's Doctor apparently but it may well be a future one (or past), once they have overcome the tricky part of working out how the Doctor will continue past his allotted number of lives now he is on his last one!

bytor they've already solved the problem of the permitted number of Time Lord lives - wasn't the new regeneration cycle that was granted in Matt Smith's final main story the solution to that?

^^^^
yeah in the xmas special last year the doctor got a new set of regenerations

(31-08-2014 23:47 )Regenerated Wrote:  bytor they've already solved the problem of the permitted number of Time Lord lives - wasn't the new regeneration cycle that was granted in Matt Smith's final main story the solution to that?

Ah ok I lost the will with that so didn't watch it all. Pardon my ignorance on this.

I doubt if we will see 'Rusty' again but wonder if they haven't ruled out a return to the Daleks' Asylum in the future?

I thought it was better than the first episode.
Agree with a lot of Bytor's post at the top of the page.

Think the stick about the Doctor "not realising Daleks are evil" from a few posters is maybe a bit harsh.

I read it as the Doctor proving to himself that HE wasn't evil by just dismissing the Daleks as irretrievably evil.

And that he didn't feel he could he trust his own instincts on right and wrong where Daleks are concerned - so he needed Clara there.

The fact that he felt the need to - completely implausibly? - - disappear from the rebel space-ship after having been shown the Dalek to pick up Clara and then come back again would seem to support that.

(Like the human soldiers would have allowed him to do that - oh,yeah - sure, we trust you to leave and then come back again to our secret spaceship nobody's supposed to know about )

Of course the whole reason for this clunky bit of plotting was presumably a dramatic decision that it was much better to have the Doctor rescuing the female soldier and being threatened by her in the TARDIS alone than with a hanger on. And yes that opener would have been more diluted if the scene had been a three-hander. But it created a writing problem that I'm not sure the jokey popping into the school cupboard with coffee entirely papered over.

Anyway, long-winded nit pick aside...

Hasn't the whole of the new series continually made (a bit of a meal admittedly) of the idea that from the point of view of his various adversaries the Doctor is pretty destructive - and if you're on the opposite side - merciless ? And Good Men have to do Bad Things ...ad nauseum.

The only reason they're "bad" and the Doctor is "good" is because he tries to get them to compromise and they don't.

So wasn't the trip into the Dalek the Doctor's way of proving to himself he IS a "Good Man" just by him not taking the easy way out and refusing to countenance the idea that the Daleks COULD be changed for the better somehow; and wasn't that why it had to end the way it did with the Dalek taking on the Doctor's own "Dalek hatred" instead of its own ?

After all - Tom Baker was sent back to Skaro by the Time Lords "to alter their genetic development so that they evolve into less aggressive creatures" ? He bottled wiping them out completely, but he had the chance to engineer a coup against Davros and then let the more reasonable Kaled scientist perfect a less "inhuman" Dalek.

And presumably it might have been possible - if he hadn't totally muffed it and let Davros and Nyder run rings around him while they destroyed all the Kaled scientists with a conscience ?

(And by his ultimate failure thereby setting in motion events that would eventually lead to the Time War ?)

The whole heaven / Paradise thing.Interesting.

The first guy in the Dalek one that was killed by the antibodies (with the Doctor's help!) wasn't there... unless I missed that.

But the female soldier who bravely laid down her life later in the episode was ?

Is the implication supposed to be the first guy kind of deserved it but she didn't ?

If so is somebody going around "rescuing" the "undeserved collateral damage" from the Doctor's escapades ?

Does that mean the clockwork android in the first one bravely self-sacrificed himself, rather than being directly pushed by the Doctor ?

Who's "rescuing" these people?

My money is on the woman in the garden being a personification of the TARDIS, which is rescuing all the Doctor's "victims" behind his back, for some big end of season finale !

That would explain her reference to "my boyfriend".

Now that would be a game-changer - TARDIS turns against its owner!

And turns against him with maximum prejudice - scooping up all his wronged victims across space and time to face him down ! Here's hoping!

But I bet it's some dimensional cop out like "The Library" and they're all in some computer data bank.

Whoa that was way too long sorry.

^^^ If you think your review is too long. Then the next time you write a review of a Doctor Who episode on this forum (or any other forum), do a draft on Microsoft Word and set yourself a strict word limit.

The first episode was fine and I thought a positive trend had been set. But the second episode was disappointing. Just how many times are the writers and producers going to rely on the Daleks for storylines and plots?

Audience figures were significantly down for this episode. Approximately 7 million watched the first episode whilst just over 5 million tuned in to this episode.

(02-09-2014 14:13 )Billy_Nomates Wrote:  The first episode was fine and I thought a positive trend had been set. But the second episode was disappointing. Just how many times are the writers and producers going to rely on the Daleks for storylines and plots?

Audience figures were significantly down for this episode. Approximately 7 million watched the first episode whilst just over 5 million tuned in to this episode.

You are just looking at the overnight viewing figures,they do not take into account people who recorded it on DVR's/PVR's (Sky+ boxes, Virgin TiVo boxes, Freeview+ boxes, and Freesat+ boxes). And when you take those into account the first episode got 9.17 million viewers, and the second episode has risen from 5.195 million to 6.806 million (so far).

(02-09-2014 14:13 )Billy_Nomates Wrote:  The first episode was fine and I thought a positive trend had been set. But the second episode was disappointing. Just how many times are the writers and producers going to rely on the Daleks for storylines and plots?

Audience figures were significantly down for this episode. Approximately 7 million watched the first episode whilst just over 5 million tuned in to this episode.

I think you will find there are plenty of fans who want less positive trends and much more reliance on old style stories with daleks.