Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor Whilst I'm a little late in terms of broadcast due to me being very tired in the evenings after going to hospital with MRS Dark, I was less tired last night, so I treated myself to a fine glass of port, a box of coco covered chocolate truffles and the first two episodes of season 12. This also means that this morning my thoughts are back, and since I will be discussing spoilers, if you don't want the plot spoiled, stop here.01: Spyfall part 1 Okay, I admit I didn't care for this one at first. We seemed to run into an issue where action sequences got randomly dropped into the plot at inappropriate times, and where the doctor's companions ceased to feel like real people, albeit the geeking out over gadgits was fun!So we can suddenly infiltrate an evil millionaire's base and get access to him for no reason, and oh, look the two poor australian secret agents volunteer to keep watch outside the house, and are killed just in time for Agent O, who appeared to be the world's biggest none entity to remember the secret force field, oh that was convenient (pun intended), shame about the poor extras. Yet, with the revelation of the Master, so much of this makes sense. Why have the Doctor picked up by MI6 and then an attempted assassination? because Master is a psychopath who likes to play with people, he was probably laughing up his sleeve at the agents' tragic deaths. Also probably the best master reveal ever and a nice way to get rid of the lingering bad taste of that flirt machine Missy, indeed Sacha Dhawan's master is one of the best I've seen, a completely random psycho with a wonderfully soft and menacing voice and tonnes of charisma, plus the spy aliens were just down right creepy and their dimension such a wonderfully alien environment. That being said, hanging the cliff by teleporting the doctor to the rather easily escapable place Yasmin got out of earlier is not the best way to end an episode, and whilst a lot of the spy antics, bike chases, gadgets and card games were fun spy trappings, I never really got much of a sense of menace, accept when the Master appeared. So all in all not a bad start, and one that improves with hindsight, but still a little over fluffy in places. 02: Spyfall part 2 As I said, starting with the Doctor in the really easily es capable dimension really wasn't such a good thing, though I did like the time hopping to different periods with the Master in pursuit, indeed seeing the dark skinned master mascarading as a nazi officer by use of a perception filter was so wonderfully wrong! as were his antics at the 1854 exhibition (I love the way he appologised to the woman before tissue compressing her, since of course we had to bring the master's tissue compression gun back). Also my god, so good to see Doctor who remembering it's continuity for the most part, everything from mentions of the fourth doctor's death, to the sound of drums timelord heartbeat, to even remembering that the previous doctor was actually male (something we've barely acknowledged previously). it's nice to see the thirteenth doctor take on so much of the Doctor's back story.Unfortunately, the plot back on earth was a little too muddled. The aliens' identity was never adequately explained and whilst the evil plan was pretty evil, it was no sooner stated than reversed. Indeed, I find it odd that this episode both featured the best example of an: "I went back in time and fixed it), plot, with the wonderfully tense sequence of Ryan and co landing the plane with the Doctor's rather garbled instructions, and the absolute worst example of a "go back in time and fix it" plot, with the doctor casually revealing that she'd already instituted a virus to stop the aliens coming through the machine only after the fact, a reveal so deus ex machina it's worthy of Adam West's batman. I also didn't really like the stuff with the team on earth. The idea of a tech company declaring people persona none grata and getting them pulled in by the police and monitored is wonderfully scary, as is the idea of a tech company destroying all privacy to gain power, (a theme which really should have been explored further). However, this again was where the Doctor's companions disappointed, since again they were just too super awesome at everything! from avoiding the police to taking out a bunch of armed guards, that the nearly omniscient evil tech company felt virtually toothless.I can't help comparing this to the similar situation in the sound of Drumbs when the Master was prime minister and went after Martha Jones' family, and you saw down right desperate and nasty things , with innocent people being dragged into police cars and Martha finding bombs everywhere. And the big reveal, oh look, gallifrey has been destroyed, again! this revelation I really hate, since yee gods, haven't we had about 8 series of trying to get the damn thing back? And "all your history is
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor Whilst I'm a little late in terms of broadcast due to me being very tired in the evenings after going to hospital with MRS Dark, I was less tired last night, so I treated myself to a fine glass of port, a box of coco covered chocolate truffles and the first two episodes of season 12. This also means that this morning my thoughts are back, and since I will be discussing spoilers, if you don't want the plot spoiled, stop here.01: Spyfall part 1 Okay, I admit I didn't care for this one at first. We seemed to run into an issue where action sequences got randomly dropped into the plot at inappropriate times, and where the doctor's companions ceased to feel like real people, albeit the geeking out over gadgits was fun!So we can suddenly infiltrate an evil millionaire's base and get access to him for no reason, and oh, look the two poor australian secret agents volunteer to keep watch outside the house, and are killed just in time for Agent O, who appeared to be the world's biggest none entity to remember the secret force field, oh that was convenient (pun intended), shame about the poor extras. Yet, with the revelation of the Master, so much of this makes sense. Why have the Doctor picked up by MI6 and then an attempted assassination? because Master is a psychopath who likes to play with people, he was probably laughing up his sleeve at the agents' tragic deaths. Also probably the best master reveal ever and a nice way to get rid of the lingering bad taste of that flirt machine Missy, indeed Sacha Dhawan's master is one of the best I've seen, a completely random psycho with a wonderfully soft and menacing voice and tonnes of charisma, plus the spy aliens were just down right creepy and their dimension such a wonderfully alien environment. That being said, hanging the cliff by teleporting the doctor to the rather easily escapable place Yasmin got out of earlier is not the best way to end an episode, and whilst a lot of the spy antics, bike chases, gadgets and card games were fun spy trappings, I never really got much of a sense of menace, accept when the Master appeared. So all in all not a bad start, and one that improves with hindsight, but still a little over fluffy in places. 02: Spyfall part 2 As I said, starting with the Doctor in the really easily es capable dimension really wasn't such a good thing, though I did like the time hopping to different periods with the Master in pursuit, indeed seeing the dark skinned master mascarading as a nazi officer by use of a perception filter was so wonderfully wrong! as were his antics at the 1854 exhibition (I love the way he appologised to the woman before tissue compressing her, since of course we had to bring the master's tissue compression gun back). Also my god, so good to see Doctor who remembering it's continuity for the most part, everything from mentions of the fourth doctor's death, to the sound of drums timelord heartbeat, to even remembering that the previous doctor was actually male (something we've barely acknowledged previously). it's nice to see the thirteenth doctor take her place in the continuity rather than trying to do something different. Unfortunately, the plot back on earth was a little too muddled. The aliens' identity was never adequately explained and whilst the evil plan was pretty evil, it was no sooner stated than reverse. Indeed, I find it odd that this episode both featured the best example of a "I went back in time and fixed it), plot, with the wonderfully tense sequence of Ryan and co landing the plane with the Doctor's rather garbled instructions, and the absolute worst example of a "go back in time and fix it" plot, with the doctor casually revealing that she'd already instituted a virus to stop the aliens coming through the machine only after the fact, a reveal so deus ex machina it's worthy of Adam West's batman. I also didn't really like the stuff with the team on earth, indeed the iea of a tech company declaring people persona none grata and getting them pulled in by the police and monitored is wonderfully scary, as is the idea of a tech company destroying all privacy to gain power, (a theme wich really should have been explored further). However, this again was where the Doctor's companions really disappointed, since again they were just super compitant at everythign! from avoiding the police to taking out a bunch of armed guards! I can't help comparing this to the similar situation in the sound of Drumbs when the Master was prime minister and went after Martha Jones' family, and you saw down right desperate and nasty things got, with innocent people being dragged into police cars and Martha finding bombs everywhere. Finallyy, oh look, gallifrey has been destroyed, again! this revelation I really hate, since yee gods, haven't we had about 8 series of trying to get the damn thing back? And "all your history is a lie!" Really, can w
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor so any thoughts on the first 2 of series 12? i quite liked them for what it is worth. URL: https://forum.audiogames.net/post/491431/#p491431 -- Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor it’s not been as long before I got to these last couple of episodes of Doctor who, so thoughts incoming and spoilers ahoy, stop here before the spoilers of spoiling begin to spoil your enjoyment of Episodes 10 and 11. Episode 10, The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos Okay he who moans had a good old winj at this one for not being the finale he expected. To be honest, I wasn’t coming into this one expecting a finale, there had been no particular leadup, no indication that there would be one so in general I was slightly more favourably inclined. I will agree with he who moans that the title is very misleading, since there really isn’t much of a battle here. I enjoyed the exploration part and some of the random big sf ideas, like the psychic planet, the two person race with mental abilities, and of course the return of the stanza, however other parts felt a little off.For example, I do agree with he who moans that the psychic planet was a totally wasted concept, indeed even when the Doctor first comes up with the idea of neural balancers to block the signal, she warns everyone that they might be unstable, so I was expecting hallucinations, weird happenings and a lot of creepy horror, but no. I admit I did like the Uks, mostly because the way their faith was handled genuinely surprised me. Someone doing bad things in the name of a creator who turns out to be a psycho alien, I was expecting that same “religion is always bad” message which I’m getting rather tired of. For the doctor who actually acknowledge the Uks faith might be based on something, and even utter a prayer at one point. Okay I will confess the Uks switch, and the fact that basically the entire finale ran around a huge techno magical ritual to reverse the planet destruction was something of an anti-climax, indeed I really wish this one had been a two parter since we really should’ve had more time to get to see the setting, understand the ideas and feel major jeopardy. That being said at least I got the idea that the doctor solved this problem sort of with her brain rather than just shouting at it which mostly happened in the Moffat era, indeed her big speech about how awesome she was was nicely short and to the point, which in general is one of the plusses of this doctor.My one major problem here was Graham’s “revenge!” plot. Unlike he who moans, I didn’t mind the fact graham came up with this in this episode, of course it’d come up when he saw his wife’s killer. Likewise, his speeches about Grace being a fighter made a lot of sense. I was expecting Graham to either go wrong, or to learn his lesson, perhaps revealing some of the alien’s backstory, maybe you’d find that even Stenza have spouses and graham realises that killing Tzim-Sha. Will bereave someone else. However, Tzim-Sha. It turns out is a completely bat shit crazy alien who has already wiped out millions of lives on five planets and is planning to do more, yet the doctor tells Graham how bad it would be to kill him? Revenge or not, frankly this guy needs to go! And hay if graham can get some closure in the process, why not, indeed the Doctor leaves that as a giant gaping hole in her plans. At the end, when Tzim-Sha. Is punted into a stasis chamber I was sitting there thinking “well done Graham, you’ve just caused millions of other deaths!” Really, I’m no fan of revenge, and am generally a pacifist myself, and in the past this has always been something I’ve liked in Doctor who, unlike Marvel super heroes the Doctor actually kills when necessary to prevent greater destruction, and when he doesn’t, there is a reason or flaw involved, however now no all killing is apparently wrong, at least until we get to the next episode. but of course Graham is the better man and therefore leaves open the threat of universal destruction on a massive scale! All in all not a bad story, though perhaps not the finale I was thinking of, I always like weird scifi ideas and it was nice to see religious faith treated sort of well, but too many glaring holes. s Episode 11, resolution Okay I forgot this was actually the 2019 new year special, so oddly enough I thought I’d missed an episode and it was this year’s which was funny. Also, I was unaware this story would feature the Daleks which made a pleasant surprise. The nice couple of archaeologists getting together was fantastic, and poor Lin who got possessed by a dalek. Possession of course is not new, but this was a particularly Dalek form of it, short, to the point and with lots of killing. Also, I liked that we didn’t have to harp on too much about Lin’s being stronger Dalek and mostly stayed out of the cheese. The Dalek’s battles were also absolutely spectacular in this one, indeed I almost applauded when the military opened fire, had no effect, and then ran. I don’t think since the first series episode Dalek have we seen a Dalek be this bloody scary or destructive, though I really do wish the Doctor had
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor Well having been at my parents for Christmas, my rather leisurely stroll through the 13th doctor’s first season continues, so thoughts incoming on the next two episodes, the witch finders and it takes you away. Needless to say, spoilage ahoy for these two stories for anyone who hasn’t seen them. Episode 8: The witch finders Okay I loved the start here, with the really nasty ducking, and the poor old lady dying, it’s nice that the past feels dangerous again, I also really liked the fact that the lady in charge of the witch trials was very much an ordinary person, not just a ranting stereotypical hell and damnation merchant, indeed though there was a lot about “sin” and “satan” here, I did like the fact that the Doctor reminded everyone that Christianity’s central teaching was “love thy neighbour.”Also, a great way of handling past sexism to treat people dismissing the doctor’s opinions and poor old Graham being mistaken for head witch finder, indeed making a subject comical is a great way to highlight things and not feel heavy or preachy. All that being said, I’m afraid the episode took a major dip when king James turned up. Honestly, he was so over-the-top I thought he was going to turn out to be a con artist, or alien construct or something, but that this wooden ranting idiot actually was! The king? Really I’d have been quite content just making this the story of a bunch of paranoid villagers, especially with how well Willa and Becca were presented as real characters, despite the fact I don’t think anyone in the 16th century would be called “becca.” I did think things got a bit too moralistic when Yasmin was talking to willa about being scared or being picked on, and the statement that Becca just picked on people because she was scared herself, then again I freely admit if Becca savage had just been a completely cardboard loopy Christian I’d probably been more irritated, and obviously in only 45 minutes one doesn’t’ have time to show too much, still I was disappointed how much attention went on King James, oh and btw was it me, or was he coming on to Ryan?This is one where I agree with He who moans reasoning, but not with his conclusion, since he also completely hated King James and thought Willa needed way more focus, but he utterly repudiates the episode, where as for me these were elements that turned what might have been a really good, suspenseful episode about paranoia and witch hunts, into a mostly okay episode with a stupid portrayal of a historical character which I could only take so seriously, despite the grim tone of the beginning. As to the aliens, again I completely disagree with he who moans here. He utterly hated the aliens for doing yet another alien invasion plot and being yet another “take over the world” alien race. Personally, I didn’t mind. Sentient mud is creepy, sentient mud that takes over dead bodies is super creepy, and it’s nice to meet a good old bad alien race in Doctor who. My only issue with the aliens, is that they cut the character plot dead. Willa didn’t really get much of a moment, Becca was pretty much erased, and why the hell the aliens wanted King James the super ponse I don’t know, indeed when the doctor said “they’ve got King James” I wanted to quote red dwarf: “quick, let’s get out of here before they bring him back!” .So, whilst not as good as it might have been, it wasn’t too bad either, sort of a 6-10 type of episode, if I was bothering to give ratings. Episode 9, it takes you away Okay, first thing before we start, it’s been fairly obvious this series has been trying to be representative, with the Doctor being female, and companions including Ryan obviously dark skinned, and Yasmin, obviously Pakistani. They’ve actually done this extremely well, using the racial angle to tell some interesting stories Rosa, demons of the Punjab, and concentrating on the Doctor being the Doctor, rather than making a huge song and dance about the Doctor’s gender, accept for a few occasions where it’s relevant. Here however is where that pyramid falls down utterly, since in It takes you away they include their first blind character, the way she’s treated is absolutely abysmal. First, I’m expected to believe that this girl, who is apparently fourteen, spends the entire episode looking for “her daddy” and crying because she’s lost him. I was willing to let this slide at first, if a monster was in the offing (after all everyone’s scared of monsters, hence them being monsters). But then we learn that the “monster” was supposedly her dad having set up speakers to trick her into staying inside? If this wasn’t bad enough, the Doctor (yes the hero of the hole series), actually lies to her by writing messages asking Ryan to “look after her” whilst pretending to write a map. Yeah, great example of honesty there Doctor, as well as “look after?” I thought the point of this was the tired old cliché about the blind character
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor Well having been at my parents for Christmas, my rather leisurely stroll through the 13th doctor’s first season continues, so thoughts incoming on the next two episodes, the witch finders and it takes you away. Needless to say, spoilage ahoy for these two stories for anyone who hasn’t seen them. Episode 8: The witch finders Okay I loved the start here, with the really nasty ducking, and the poor old lady dying, it’s nice that the past feels dangerous again, I also really liked the fact that the lady in charge of the witch trials was very much an ordinary person, not just a ranting stereotypical hell and damnation merchant, indeed though there was a lot about “sin” and “satan” here, I did like the fact that the Doctor reminded everyone that Christianity’s central teaching was “love thy neighbour.”Also, a great way of handling past sexism to treat people dismissing the doctor’s opinions and poor old Graham being mistaken for head witch finder, indeed making a subject comical is a great way to highlight things and not feel heavy or preachy. All that being said, I’m afraid the episode took a major dip when king James turned up. Honestly, he was so over-the-top I thought he was going to turn out to be a con artist, or alien construct or something, but that this wooden ranting idiot actually was! The king? Really I’d have been quite content just making this the story of a bunch of paranoid villagers, especially with how well Willa and Becca were presented as real characters, despite the fact I don’t think anyone in the 16th century would be called “becca.” I did think things got a bit too moralistic when Yasmin was talking to willa about being scared or being picked on, and the statement that Becca just picked on people because she was scared herself, then again I freely admit if Becca savage had just been a completely cardboard loopy Christian I’d probably been more irritated, and obviously in only 45 minutes one doesn’t’ have time to show too much, still I was disappointed how much attention went on King James, oh and btw was it me, or was he coming on to Ryan?This is one where I agree with He who moans reasoning, but not with his conclusion, since he also completely hated King James and thought Willa needed way more focus, but he utterly repudiates the episode, where as for me these were elements that turned what might have been a really good, suspenseful episode about paranoia and witch hunts, into a mostly okay episode with a stupid portrayal of a historical character which I could only take so seriously, despite the grim tone of the beginning. As to the aliens, again I completely disagree with he who moans here. He utterly hated the aliens for doing yet another alien invasion plot and being yet another “take over the world” alien race. Personally, I didn’t mind. Sentient mud is creepy, sentient mud that takes over dead bodies is super creepy, and it’s nice to meet a good old bad alien race in Doctor who. My only issue with the aliens, is that they cut the character plot dead. Willa didn’t really get much of a moment, Becca was pretty much erased, and why the hell the aliens wanted King James the super ponse I don’t know, indeed when the doctor said “they’ve got King James” I wanted to quote red dwarf: “quick, let’s get out of here before they bring him back!” .So, whilst not as good as it might have been, it wasn’t too bad either, sort of a 6-10 type of episode, if I was bothering to give ratings. Episode 9, it takes you away Okay, first thing before we start, it’s been fairly obvious this series has been trying to be representative, with the Doctor being female, and companions including Ryan obviously dark skinned, and Yasmin, obviously Pakistani. They’ve actually done this extremely well, using the racial angle to tell some interesting stories Rosa, demons of the Punjab, and concentrating on the Doctor being the Doctor, rather than making a huge song and dance about the Doctor’s gender, accept for a few occasions where it’s relevant. Here however is where that pyramid falls down utterly, since in It takes you away they include their first blind character, the way she’s treated is absolutely abysmal. First, I’m expected to believe that this girl, who is apparently fourteen, spends the entire episode looking for “her daddy” and crying because she’s lost him. I was willing to let this slide at first, if a monster was in the offing (after all everyone’s scared of monsters, hence them being monsters). But then we learn that the “monster” was supposedly her dad having set up speakers to trick her into staying inside? If this wasn’t bad enough, the Doctor (yes the hero of the hole series), actually lies to her by writing messages asking Ryan to “look after her” whilst pretending to write a map. Yeah, great example of honesty there Doctor, as well as “look after?” I thought the point of this was the tired old cliché about the blind character
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor
2019-09-14
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AudioGames . net Forum — Off-topic room : vaibhavbhandari via Audiogames-reflector
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor I haven't seen Capaldy, but I did like Mat Smith. I haven't seen series 5 much though. URL: https://forum.audiogames.net/post/461931/#p461931 -- Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor Agreed on surreal humour, that's always been one of Doctor who's strong points, however I'm afraid the pandorica and the change to mat smith as the eleventh doctor was the Beginning of the end for me, schizoid plots, no actual death and bloody annoying characters from Amy pond, to river song to miss I'm so smug Clara oswald. As I said in post 1, when my dad missed recording season 9 I never bothered to go back and catch up, and had Stephen Moffat still been show runner I probably wouldn't have bothered now, despite the thirteenth doctor being a lady.Remember though, new who is probably only the tip of the Iceberg as far as doctor who goes. Classic Doctor who ran from 1963 to 1989, and had some amazing stories. Whats more, a lot of the classic Dr. Who actors are still making audio dramas as well, heck these days they've even got some of the actors from the beginning of new who, and have further adventures with the tenth doctor and with characters like Rose tyler and Donna noble, not to mention lots of absolutely awesome torchwood stuff. Then again, I will say its really nice to be able to actually be interested in Tv doctor who again, rather than being continually more and more pissed off and generally board by the hole thing, as has increasingly happened since 2009. URL: https://forum.audiogames.net/post/461872/#p461872 -- Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor "Hello; I'm the Doctor. Now run!"Once I jumped off of Dr. Who a few years ago I've never found it in me to get back into it. I loved the convoluted story lines though with their time loops and things like the Pandora box. I was happy when they got rid of Pond since I wasn't a fan. But after that I'd pretty much had enough of Dr. Who. So reading your thoughts is pretty interesting, but I still say "nah, I'm good."My favorite parts were when they'd decide to put in quirky humor in the middle of a serious scene. Like when the US President comes out on a red carpet with all his music and stuff and sees that everyone is staring at him and he goes silent with an embarrassed clearing of the throat. Today I don't remember what episode it was but it was one of the funniest moments ever. URL: https://forum.audiogames.net/post/461636/#p461636 -- Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor Okay due to a lot of factors, including the fact that I can only watch Dr. who over night at my parents, and the fact that they've been having issues with their tv's wifi, its been ages since I continued on with Doctor who season 11, however, despite episode 5 being a miner dip in quality I wanted to continue on with the next few stories, so thoughts on episodes 6 and 7 incoming. 6:demons of the Punjab: I loved the premise of this one. As I've said, having Doctor who go to periods of history I'm less familiar with is always a good thing, and while I do know India gained independence in 1947, I didn't know anything about the formation of Pakistan, plus like Rosa this is a great way of using the background of the companions to create compelling stories, both in terms of Yasmin being Pakistani, and in terms of it being her nan's past, and whats more a past which is stil very relevant for people today.I also really liked the fact that for once we got a species of alien assassins who insisted they'd reformed and werent' killing people anymore, and were actually telling the truth! oh and the fact that they were wonderfully disturbing aliens was pretty cool too.On the other hand, to say that this is an episode about a Hindu and Muslim getting married, why the hell wasn't there more about actual religious beliefs involved, its as if the show wants to acknowledge different people's religions but not want to suggest that those religions actually involve believing anything. The part when the couple decided to do "a Hindu thing" and "A muslim thing" and decide to "make them our own traditions" without any mention of God or gods actively made me wince, likely along with lots of Hindus and muslims out there, not only do I severely doubt anyone in 1947 would've actually thought like that, but also no matter how many big speeches the doctor gives regarding "having faith in the power of love," last I checked having religious beliefs actually involved believing in something other than yourself, especially at weddings when you think said higher power might have brought you together.this is a major contrast to some of the audios, and made the historical period rather disappointing, since if your not actually going to show me a different culture and set of beliefs in history, the doctor might as well stay at home. I also found the Doctor's total lack of botherment about Yasmin's potentially changing her own timeline a bit disconcerting, especially wandering off and leaving Yasmin quite happily hobnobbing with her nan while the Doctor rushed off after the aliens, m, quite a far cry from Father's day where Rose nearly destroyed the world by trying to change her father's past, indeed the hole changing timelines plot got dropped a bit too quickly.lastly, this is the first episode where I've felt the cryticism that the series has an overt political message a bit much. not that I mind themes and meaning in things when they're done well, but the endless "nationalism is bad, lets all band together, drawing lines on a map wrenches people apart" was so on the nose brexit related it wasn't funny, especially contrasting the nationalist thugs and the good hindu muslim wedding, though admitedly part of this might have been that Manesh, the brother with the Indian nationalist kick just wasn't the world's greatest actor, and thus never convinced me he was quite the good man who'd gone wrong the script wanted him to be, had his acting been a bit more convincing, and ad we been given more reason for him to believe what he believed, I might have bought the change personality and the murder of his brother a bit more, idneed the confrontation between the two brothers was just not as half as fraught as it could've been.so an episode with sum major plusses, including the wonderfully wierd teleporting aliens who actually did turn out to be on the side of right, nice use of character backstory and for once a halfway decent soundtrack, but with a few minuses as well, though in general I thought it was better than number 5. 7: Kerblam Not based on Shazam at all . Okay this one I really liked! Give me a good old fashioned Doctor who investigation story about mysterious deaths in a futuristic location complete with freaky robots, some offbeat culture and a little alien wierdness any day. Very much a classic who style story, it reminded me strongly of the robots of death (there was even a nod to that in mention of robophobia). I liked how we got to know the different workers, and how the issue of there being too few human workers was introduced, indeed where the previous story was a bit too overt with its message, this one was far more subtle in introducing the idea of automation removing people's jobs. There was a little that was slightly too obvious, Ryan's talk about his dislexia was a bit on the ball, and the Kira the ditsy
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor Okay due to a lot of factors, including the fact that I can only watch Dr. who over night at my parents, and the fact that they've been having issues with their tv's wifi, its been ages since I continued on with Doctor who season 11, however, despite episode 5 being a miner dip in quality I wanted to continue on with the next few stories, so thoughts on episodes 6 and 7 incoming. 6:demons of the Punjab: I loved the premise of this one. As I've said, having Doctor who go to periods of history I'm less familiar with is always a good thing, and while I do know India gained independence in 1947, I didn't know anything about the formation of Pakistan, plus like Rosa this is a great way of using the background of the companions to create compelling stories, both in terms of Yasmin being Pakistani, and in terms of it being her nan's past. I also really liked the fact that for once we got a species of alien assassins who insisted they'd reformed and werent' killing people anymore, and were actually telling the truth! oh and the fact that they were wonderfully disturbing aliens was pretty cool too.On the other hand, to say that this is an episode about a Hindu and Muslim getting married, why the hell wasn't there more about actual religious beliefs involved, its as if the show wants to acknowledge different people's religions but not want to suggest that those religions actually involve believing anything. The part when the couple decided to do "a Hindu thing" and "A muslim thing" and decide to "make them our own traditions" without any mention of God or gods actively made me wince, likely along with lots of Hindus and muslims out there, not only do I severely doubt anyone in 1947 would've actually thought like that, but also no matter how many big speeches the doctor gives regarding "having faith in the power of love," last I checked having religious beliefs actually involved believing in something other than yourself, especially at weddings when you think said higher power might have brought you together.this is a major contrast to some of the audios, and made the historical period rather disappointing, since if your not actually going to show me a different culture and set of beliefs in history, the doctor might as well stay at home. I also found the Doctor's total lack of botherment about Yasmin's potentially changing her own timeline a bit disconcerting, especially wandering off and leaving Yasmin quite happily hobnobbing with her nan while the Doctor rushed off after the aliens, m, quite a far cry from Father's day where Rose nearly destroyed the world by trying to change her father's past, indeed the hole changing timelines plot got dropped a bit too quickly.lastly, this is the first episode where I've felt the cryticism that the series has an overt political message a bit much. not that I mind themes and meaning in things when they're done well, but the endless "nationalism is bad, lets all band together, drawing lines on a map wrenches people apart" was so on the nose brexit related it wasn't funny, especially contrasting the nationalist thugs and the good hindu muslim wedding, though admitedly part of this might have been that Manesh, the brother with the Indian nationalist kick just wasn't the world's greatest actor, and thus never convinced me he was quite the good man who'd gone wrong the script wanted him to be, had his acting been a bit more convincing, and ad we been given more reason for him to believe what he believed, I might have bought the change personality and the murder of his brother a bit more, idneed the confrontation between the two brothers was just not as half as fraught as it could've been.so an episode with sum major plusses, including the wonderfully wierd teleporting aliens who actually did turn out to be on the side of right, nice use of character backstory and for once a halfway decent soundtrack, but with a few minuses as well, though in general I thought it was better than number 5. 7: Kerblam Not based on Shazam at all . Okay this one I really liked! Give me a good old fashioned Doctor who investigation story about mysterious deaths in a futuristic location complete with freaky robots, some offbeat culture and a little alien wierdness any day. Very much a classic who style story, it reminded me strongly of the robots of death (there was even a nod to that in mention of robophobia). I liked how we got to know the different workers, and how the issue of there being too few human workers was introduced, indeed where the previous story was a bit too overt with its message, this one was far more subtle in introducing the idea of automation removing people's jobs. There was a little that was slightly too obvious, Ryan's talk about his dislexia was a bit on the ball, and the Kira the ditsy worker was introduced a bit too quickly, but both were appealing
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor Okay due to a lot of factors, including the fact that I can only watch Dr. who over night at my parents, and the fact that they've been having issues with their tv's wifi, its been ages since I continued on with Doctor who season 11, however, despite episode 5 being a miner dip in quality I wanted to continue on with the next few stories, so thoughts on episodes 6 and 7 incoming. 6:demons of the Punjab: I loved the premise of this one. As I've said, having Doctor who go to periods of history I'm less familiar with is always a good thing, and while I do know India gained independence in 1947, I didn't know anything about the formation of Pakistan, plus like Rosa this is a great way of using the background of the companions to create compelling stories, both in terms of Yasmin being Pakistani, and in terms of it being her nan's past. I also really liked the fact that for once we got a species of alien assassins who insisted they'd reformed and werent' killing people anymore, and were actually telling the truth! oh and the fact that they were wonderfully disturbing aliens was pretty cool too.On the other hand, to say that this is an episode about a Hindu and Muslim getting married, why the hell wasn't there more about actual religious beliefs involved, its as if the show wants to acknowledge different people's religions but not want to suggest that those religions actually involve believing anything. The part when the couple decided to do "a Hindu thing" and "A muslim thing" and decide to "make them our own traditions" without any mention of God or gods actively made me wince, likely along with lots of Hindus and muslims out there, not only do I severely doubt anyone in 1947 would've actually thought like that, but also no matter how many big speeches the doctor gives regarding "having faith in the power of love," last I checked having religious beliefs actually involved believing in something other than yourself, especially at weddings when you think said higher power might have brought you together.this is a major contrast to some of the audios, and made the historical period rather disappointing, since if your not actually going to show me a different culture and set of beliefs in history, the doctor might as well stay at home. I also found the Doctor's total lack of botherment about Yasmin's potentially changing her own timeline a bit disconcerting, especially wandering off and leaving Yasmin quite happily hobnobbing with her nan while the Doctor rushed off after the aliens, m, quite a far cry from Father's day where Rose nearly destroyed the world by trying to change her father's past, indeed the hole changing timelines plot got dropped a bit too quickly.lastly, this is the first episode where I've felt the cryticism that the series has an overt political message a bit much. not that I mind themes and meaning in things when they're done well, but the endless "nationalism is bad, lets all band together, drawing lines on a map wrenches people apart" was so on the nose brexit related it wasn't funny, especially contrasting the nationalist thugs and the good hindu muslim wedding, though admitedly part of this might have been that Manesh, the brother with the Indian nationalist kick just wasn't the world's greatest actor, and thus never convinced me he was quite the good man who'd gone wrong the script wanted him to be, had his acting been a bit more convincing, and ad we been given more reason for him to believe what he believed, I might have bought the change personality and the murder of his brother a bit more, idneed the confrontation between the two brothers was just not as half as fraught as it could've been.so an episode with sum major plusses, including the wonderfully wierd teleporting aliens who actually did turn out to be on the side of right, nice use of character backstory and for once a halfway decent soundtrack, but with a few minuses as well, though in general I thought it was better than number 5. 7: Kerblam Not based on Shazam at all . Okay this one I really liked! Give me a good old fashioned Doctor who investigation story about mysterious deaths in a futuristic location complete with freaky robots, some offbeat culture and a little alien wierdness any day. Very much a classic who style story, it reminded me strongly of the robots of death (there was even a nod to that in mention of robophobia). I liked how we got to know the different workers, and how the issue of there being too few human workers was introduced, indeed where the previous story was a bit too overt with its message, this one was far more subtle in introducing the idea of automation removing people's jobs. There was a little that was slightly too obvious, Ryan's talk about his dislexia was a bit on the ball, and the Kira the ditsy worker was introduced a bit too quickly, but both were appealing
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor Okay due to a lot of factors, including the fact that I can only watch Dr. who over night at my parents, and the fact that they've been having issues with their tv's wifi, its been ages since I continued on with Doctor who season 11, however, despite episode 5 being a miner dip in quality I wanted to continue on with the next few stories, so thoughts on episodes 6 and 7 incoming. 6:demons of the Punjab: I loved the premise of this one. As I've said, having Doctor who go to periods of history I'm less familiar with is always a good thing, and while I do know India gained independence in 1947, I didn't know anything about the formation of Pakistan, plus like Rosa this is a great way of using the background of the companions to create compelling stories, both in terms of Yasmin being Pakistani, and in terms of it being her nan's past. I also really liked the fact that for once we got a species of alien assassins who insisted they'd reformed and werent' killing people anymore, and were actually telling the truth! . On the other hand, to say that this is an episode about a Hindu and Muslim getting married, why the hell wasn't there more about actual beliefs involved, its as if the show wants to acknowledge different people's religions but not want to suggest that those religions actually involve believing anything. The part when the couple decided to do "a Hindu thing" and "A muslim thing" and decide to "make them our own traditions" without any mention of God actively made me wince, likely along with lots of Hindus and muslims out there, not only do I severely doubt anyone in 1947 would've actually thought like that, but also no matter how speeches the doctor gives regarding "having faith in the power of love," last I checked having religious beliefs actually involved believing in something other than yourself, especially at weddings when you think said higher power might have brought you together. this is a major contrast to some of the audios, and made the historical period rather disappointing, since if your not actually going to show me a different culture and set of beliefs in history, the doctor might as well stay at home. I also did the Doctor's total lack of botherment about Yasmin's potentially changing her own timeline a bit disconcerting, especially wandering off and leaving Yasmin quite happily hobnobbing with her nan while the Doctor rushed off after the aliens, m, quite a far cry from Father's day where Rose nearly destroyed the world by trying to change her father's past. lastly, this is the first episode where I've vfelt the cryticism that the series has an overt political message a bit much. not that I mind themes and meaning in things when they're done well, but the endless "nationalism is bad, lets all band together, drawing lines on a map wrenches people apart" was so on the nose brexit related it wasn't funny, especially contrasting the nationalist thugs and the good hindu muslim wedding, though admitedly part of this might have been that Manesh, the brother with the Indian nationalist kick just wasn't the world's greatest actor and never really convinced me he was all committed to his cause. so an episode with sum major plusses, including the wonderfully wierd teleporting aliens who actually did turn out to be on the side of right, nice use of character backstory and for once a halfways decent soundtrack, but with a few minuses as well, though in general I thought it was better than number 5. 7: Kerblam Not based on Shazam at all . Okay this one I really liked! Give me a good old fashioned Doctor who investigation story about mysterious deaths in a futuristic location complete with freaky robots, some offbeat culture and a little alien wierdness any day. Very much a classic who style story, it reminded me strongly of the robots of death (there was even a nod to that in mention of robophobia). I liked how we got to know the different workers, and how the issue of there being too few human workers was introduced, indeed where the previous story was a bit too overt with its message, this one was far more subtle in introducing the idea of automation removing people's jobs. There was a little that was slightly too obvious, Ryan's talk about his dislexia was a bit on the ball, and the Kira the ditsy worker was introduced a bit too quickly, but both were appealing characters so I didn't mind. I also loved the way this one did so many switches around with the identity of the actual killer, making you think it was first the robots, then the evil nasty boss who actually turned out to be a nasty guy doing the right thing, then the robots themselves, then the Ai of the system which actually turned out to be doing the right thing as well. the fact that it was one character who we'd seen, who we'd liked and a character who Graham was friends with (gota love Graham), was abso
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor Thanks Grryf, good to know. In this instance, assuming the series doesn't go completely tonto in the last few episodes, I might get the dvds, as it'd be nice to have the audio description and pictures together. As regards Dr. who, well there are several places you could start. The first episode of this season, that is season eleven was actually intended as an introduction as I said above, and really doesn't require any previous knowledge of the series so far other than that the Doctor is an alien who travels through time and space in a time machine disguised as a police public call box.Season 1 of new who from 2005 is another place to start, I did that with my lady and we're currently watching through Season 4, though as I said things went downhill in season 5 quite badly thanks to the new show runner.There are then the big finish audios, in particular here I am thinking of the eighth doctor audio stories with Lucy miller, starting with blood of the Daleks. These were intended for people who didn't know as much about the series and wanted to get into doctor who in a way that was a bit more serious than the 45 minute, occasionally overblown tv new who stories, and are probably worth a go, indeed they have likely the most explosive ending I've seen for any character for quite a long while. big Finish of course do a lot of other stories, from continuing adventures with different doctors, to individual series about certain characters, their are various isolated stories with other Doctors that are worth a go, albeit some others which rely on the classic 1963-89 series, though if you want some suggestions of good isolated BF audio stories just ask, though if your a ccomplete Dr. Who novice I'd probably suggest either the tv series, starting with either series one or indeed series eleven, or the 8th doctor and Lucy miller stories if you wanted more of a good quality audio drama.hth. URL: https://forum.audiogames.net/post/438703/#p438703 -- Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor Hi, would starting to watch dr who from season 1 actually be worth it? I have wanted to start on dr who many times and all that, but lol can never seem to get a good starting point.dark wrote:Its going to be interesting to watch these with description I think, sadly they don’t seem to have description on broadcast, which is weird, but hay ifthe series continues being actually worth watching I might even buy them on dvd, though as it is I’m finding them fairly easy to follow Audiovault has the season 11 of Doctor Who described, just in case you are interested to give it a go. Grryf URL: https://forum.audiogames.net/post/438694/#p438694 -- Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor Okay I’ve now seen a bit more of the thirteenth doctor, so more thoughts incoming. Its going to be interesting to watch these with description I think, sadly they don’t seem to have description, which is weird, but hay if the series continues being actually worth watching I might even buy them on dvd, though as it is I’m finding them fairly easy to follow with my remaining vision and with the plots being actually sensible.4: Arachnids in the UK My dad commented that this one is one which really reminded him of Pertwee era who, and I can see why since its basically the same plot as the green death, though of course the green death had giant maggots and a super computer rather than giant spiders and an idiotic American company director. I liked the setup, the horror here, and the fact that Chidnal managed to do a very Russel T Davies like domestic angle with his characters that actually had something to do with the story without being all “oh look isn’t the doctor scary/great” Really, the hole thing of “companions family worried about companion with the doctor” was nice in Rose but got played to death and back, and by the time you had Danny the pudding brain pink and miss tell off the doctor Clara it had got way old. Here the companion’s family were just people who did stuff which related to the plot which was nice. Oh, and even actual death! I only had two miner niggles, firstly, the hole “oh we have to dispose of them none violently by letting the spiders starve to death” was a bit over played. Had the doctor gassed the spiders or destroyed them all in some other way that would’ve been okay, indeed while I’mno fan of guns, the argument that 8 people with guns would’ve got themselves roundly eaten if they tried to Rambo their way through the spider hoard would’ve been much more sensible than “guns are bad!” Though I have to say the bit with the wrap music was hilarious!Indeed, I wonder if we’re playing the “the doctor is caring” card a bit too much here, since while I’m all for not slaughtering species needlessly, when you’ve got a mutant spider hoard who are probably all going to die anyway, and are certainly going to murder lots of people, well all bets are off. I also wish something more satisfying had happened to the arsy Hotel director since he really needed more comeuppance.Credit though to Chidnal for actually managing the “yes travelling with the doctor is awesome and while its nice to go home travelling is more fun”, moment without over egging the pudding to ridiculously insane levels, though I will say I still miss Murray gold’s orchestral score for aesthetic reasons, while the random electronica does feel more like Classic who, classic who rarely had epic music. All in all though, a pretty good monster horror and a nice simple who story with something creepy, plus some good characterisation. 5: The tsuranga conundrum Okay this is the first episode that I felt was slightly off track. Not terrible, not bad, just the first with some obvious defects in the writing. The setup of the Doctor and crew essentially doing Alien on a hospital ship with different patience was an interesting one, and I liked the introductions of the various characters, the problem is, for the first time in the series, it felt as if the plot was over stretched. At the beginning, the Doctor takes wy too long running around behaving like a right git and not picking up that she’s on a hospital ship full of sick people, even though her Tardis was missing. While I get that she was being single minded, this is the first time I found myself actively disliking the doctor, particularly with how the senior medic was just a nice guy genuinely trying to help, she was literally endangering patience here. At this point, the medic’s sudden decision to trust her felt more a convenience of the plot than to do with anything she’d done up to that stage. The Alien here was if anything too! Over powred, I could get behind it eating anything, and eventually eating energy, it also is toxic to anyone who touches it? Indeed, to say how dangerous this thing was made to be, it really didn’t actually kill anyone or do that much damage, indeed more problems here seemed to be caused by rather contrived bureaucracy (I don’t think anyone in reality would blow up an ambulance even if they didn’t know what was wrong there for fear of disease). This was also the first time in the series when I thought things approached levels of axe grinding, with the awesome female general and her male android bit of fluff, plus the played for laughs male pregnancy, which also served to basically sideline all the members of the tardis crew into a comic subplot and make some rather heavy handed notes about fatherhood, though I admit I might be a little too harsh on this end of things since recently I was reminded of Bloodchild, Octavia butler’s wonderfully sensitive, wonderfully disturbing and definitely
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor My dad would agree with you. he introduced me to Doctor who and bought me my first video, doctor who and the silurians as it happens when I was just nine. He actually said the show now reminds him of pertwee era who, and since that's his favourite era of the show that's definitely high praise indeed.About stupidly complex plots, Amusingly enough, in a recent audio River song (who is a far more appealing character now they've got rid of all the flirty moff nonsense), actually said "sometimes I get confused about who I am" which seemed to be an admission from the writers . I disagree on Capaldy though, the frustrating thing there, is he actually had the potential! to be an interesting Doctor, being Scottish and grumpy and not just a bad David Tenant clone like poor mat smith (really no offense to the Actor but my god the writing of his character was crappy). the problem with Capaldy is everytime he tried to do something actually interesting or dark or doctorish, Miss Oswald basically told him off! It was as if Moffat, and the other writers working for him forgot the name of the show was Doctor who, not the Clara show, heck, they even went back to earth between stories turning the Doctor into basically a time space version of Uber! In a way, the belittling of the main character was almost worse than the convoluted plots (he who moans has a particularly scathing video on kill the moon). I'd be interested to see if other writers could do a semi decent job with Capaldy's doctor now they're out from under moff's thumb, they managed it with River song which I didn't think was possible, but in general I don't think I'll be going back to rewatch the rest of season 9 or season 10 any time soon. URL: https://forum.audiogames.net/post/435737/#p435737 -- Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor Amusingly enough, in a recent audio River song (who is a far more appealing character now they've got rid of all the flirty moff nonsense), actually said "sometimes I get confused about who I am" which seemed to be an admission from the writers . I disagree on Capaldy though, the frustrating thing there, is he actually had the potential! to be an interesting Doctor, being Scottish and grumpy and not just a bad David Tenant clone like poor mat smith (really no offense to the Actor but my god the writing of his character was crappy). the problem with Capaldy is everytime he tried to do something actually interesting or dark or doctorish, Miss Oswald basically told him off! It was as if Moffat, and the other writers working for him forgot the name of the show was Doctor who, not the Clara show, heck, they even went back to earth between stories turning the Doctor into basically a time space version of Uber! In a way, the belittling of the main character was almost worse than the convoluted plots (he who moans has a particularly scathing video on kill the moon). I'd be interested to see if other writers could do a semi decent job with Capaldy's doctor now they're out from under moff's thumb, they managed it with River song which I didn't think was possible, but in general I don't think I'll be going back to rewatch the rest of season 9 or season 10 any time soon. URL: https://forum.audiogames.net/post/435737/#p435737 -- Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor
Re: Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor totally agreed. it got way too convoluted and hard to follow which considering it's a family show must have left most of the kids baffled. the hole peter capaldy thing left me cold. he didn't sute the part and they way they wrote him was terrible. I think the latest ones are more back in the original spirit of the show. URL: https://forum.audiogames.net/post/435733/#p435733 -- Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor
Thoughts about the thirteenth doctor As people probably already know, I'm a massive doctor who fan, I collect the big finish audios (or at least some of them), and can give you chapter and verse on most aspects of the whoniverse. Its been odd therefore that for the last few years, TV Doctor who has just not registered with me. I can some up the reason in two words, Steven Moffat! the previous show runner, with his stupidly convoluted plots, lack of pacing, irritating characters, Amy Pond, Clara Oswald, egotystical rewrites of basic lore of the universe and general crappiness! The last who I watched was season 8 (there's a topic still kicking around with my thoughts), two episodes into season 9 my dad's digital tv lost its archive, and I just didn't care enough to find the episodes from another source, much less actually pay some money to watch them. Indeed, the last who I bothered to actually buy on DVD were the season 4 specials up to the death of the tenth Doctor, as the Eleventh and Twealth doctor's eras were so bloody disappointing. I was however interested to see season 11, not actually for the reason most people wanted to see season 11, that the Doctor now happens to be female, but because the series was changing show runners, meaning the over all tone, style, characterisation and plot would go through a radical change (I dread to think what the terrible Moff might have done with a female doctor). I admit I've been reluctant, which is why I missed the season on initial broadcast, that and the fact that I generally need to hijack my parents' tv to watch it. I'll also admit that with the current climate, and some comments I've seen about Doctor who elsewhere, i was rather worried that things would get too preachy, misandric and inclined to play to the hardline sjws, as unfortunately has already happened in a few of the more recent audios (riversong series five, the torchwood story night of the Fendhal for example).So, I've now started watching through season eleven, and my verdict is that it is bloody! frigging! seriously! awesome!Yes, I just said it awesome! Certainly the best doctor who since David Tenant, and possibly more like classic doctor who than we've up to now. So, I've watched up to episode 3 so far and in this topic I'll leave some of my thoughts on each episode as I watch them. People are free to chime in, but no spoilers please. Episode 1: The woman who fell to earth He who moans, one of my favourite youtube commentators on all things Dr. Who Find his channel here called this a typical doctor who start of series story and was most unimpressed because of it. Oddly enough though, that was what impressed me. No big speeches, no glitz, no universe destroying biggest aliens ever, just the doctor, some normal everyday characters, and an alien killing people. I’m going to repeat that so people get it Killing! People! This might seem odd for a show one of whose principle monsters yells “exterminate” all the time, however one other thing that really got up my nose with Moff is that there was never any bloody death! If anyone died, the doctor went back in time (blinavich limitation effect or not), and reversed it, or pulled out some flashy flangy doomy device of magical plotsolvingness. Not here. People die, bad things happen, and wonder of wonders the doctor even solves the hole mess with something actually logical for once.The alien predator wasn’t that interesting, but this first episode didn’t’ need interesting! Heck, the first ever episode from the sixties had no aliens at all, just the doctor and his time machine and how ordinary characters react to them. And lets get to characters, we have actual people we care about, including the guy who gets killed! We get enough backstory to know who these people are, and for them to be ordinary enough, without the script either making them so dysfunctional we want to kick them, or praising them so effusively we want to punch them, indeed actually having speak like real human beings once rather than in constant soundbites definitely a good thing to see. As I said above, I didn’t care that the Doctor was a woman. What I did worry about is that the script would! Care about the doctor being a woman and turn her into an over flirty sexually creepy confidence machine like pretty much every female character moffat has written ever. What I was pleased about, is that didn’t happen. What did happen, is that she was wonderfully weird, very scatty and lots of fun in a completely random way, indeed she reminded me of both David tenant and tom baker at different points, oh, and also thank god no romance!Its not that I don’t like romance in doctor who, however after a gripping success with rose, the subject just got ran into the ground, and hoary old convention though it is, I worried that just because the Doctor now has a uterus, we would be seeing love stories everywhere! Thankfully that’s one trap the writers haven’t fallen into (I wonder
