I know you've probably seen this - said without rancour.
But just in case.
Made me sigh in a big, gusty, sad way.

I'm keeping well abreast of all the latest theories and such for the season while avoiding spoilers the best i can (one of the few decent uses for 4chan, or at least /tv/)... but I hesitate to offer any predictions. Moffat is too brilliant for us to be on to him this early on.
also: http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lk...ny6do1_500.gif
RORY WHY CAN'T YOU DRESS THIS WELL ALL THE TIME
seriously i am crushing on dapperrory so hard right now.

We now know what Amy knows, that he is the hotness when he suits up.
But in truth I think it's his presence in this scene (if not at this specific time) more than the clothes, that makes him hot.
Usually he's in thrall to Amy (who I adore) and that lessens his character.
I'd say the same about a submissive woman compared to River Song.

I want Moffat to bring Jack back. Of course.
But I know it won't happen this series

Hey, Ibs! Persuade your parents/ college that coming to see JB in Glasgow this December is an important part of your course/ development/ rehab/ coming to terms/ therapy (delete as appropriate - they're excuses in this instance). We'll look after you I promise. Or not, as you prefer.

NO SPOILERS!
 

I've watched the last episode 2-3 times to snag plotpoints and pick up nuances.

I stumbled upon a forum recently where it was suggested that anyone who didn't "get" a Dr Who episode first time was some sort of imbecile. With posters saying things like "My three year old got it!"

Personally, I wouldn't expose a three year old to this series of Who, but that's another point entirely. Torchwood worked far more logically, but I guess I wouldn't show that to a three year old either! Still, the row it caused gave me hope for this place - turns out people can call eachother stupid for just about any reason. And do.

Of course I don't want a facile understanding. I rewatch to see exactly how later plot points mesh (or don't) with what was assumed at the time.

I enjoyed the spectacle of Saturday's episode, but I did feel it jumped about a bit.
Still, what can you say about Amy as a pirate, except huzzah! She might be a model, but she she has more believability than Kiera "sneeze-and-you'll-break-me" Knightly.

And The Doctor seemed to be channelling Denholm Elliott (RIP) in Indiana Jones. Cute.

NO DIRECT SPOILERS - AVOID IF YOU CAN'T WATCH SOON
 

I was right, and I was right.
And I was right and I was right.

Well - I had about 100 theories in my head. And I still don't get a lot of it.
But about a big thing?

I was right, and I was right.
And I was right and I was right.

Okay - real post? My River thoeries were about as accurate as throwing darts blindfolded. I got something right. But randomly.

Still - I was right, and I was right.
And I was right and I was right...

etc etc

I was right about some of it :)

We're a week behind again, darn it.

I am trying very hard not to spoil anything...

I thought it was the lovely Mark Gatiss's episode when it returns from hiatus.But although the title sounds like something he would write, it doesn't match the skeleton of the story that has been given by Gatiss in an interview.

ETA a little poking about tells me that Moffat is the writer for the next episode. And in fact I already knew the title of the Gatiss episode. I won't put it in again though, for those who prefer to come to the episodes completely chaste.

September would seem an eternity away if I didn't have Torchwood to look forward to...

I was thinking about making a Strawberry Cloud Cake for my birthday.
For the staffroom I mean, I'm not sad enough to make a birthday cake just for myself.
Because I do love to do something new for an important occasion with no idea how it will turn out :)

I was slightly put off by the fact I'd have to keep it in the freezer until serving.... but it looks SO yummy and light! And we do have two working freezers. Just one is a little icebox on top of a fridge, and the other is where we keep the disposable miniature ice packs for treating injured children...

Anyway, the above is all moot.
I've found a Dalek cake!

There are probably really amazing professional ones out there, but this is from Blue Peter (very worthy British kids' show - probably been going as long as Dr Who!) so it's designed to be E*A*S*Y*

Linky.
Photo below.

I'd have to change the decoration though.
It's far to heavy on the liquorice to be associated with me. People might think I actually eat it :shudder:
And am also confused by the honeycomb balls. First thing that sprang to mind was a Malteaser with the chocolate sucked off!

Still, 25 days to work that out.

Hearing the little hint of Torchwood theme song at the end of the ads makes me happy.

Plus, there's a Whedonverse actress playing one of the (it seems from the ad) villains!

Damn, I'd forgotten about the Dalek cake!
Will have to do it as a Welcome Back to School cake this week.

I have the majority of ingredients, even the Maltesers (which I decided not to suck the chocolate off - no-one would be pedantic enough to point out that Daleks don't have brown studs). And if they are, they don't get any bloody cake because this is my universe.

Sigh. I didn't like last night's Doctor Who half as much as I hoped to.
Perhaps it was just that my expectations were too high.
It wasn't the acting, or the budget. Just... well I wasn't scared. Unlike Blink for example - which gave me a real frisson.

I'll have to revisit it.
I'm willing to take up the burden of responsibility. But I'm a little bit sad.

I on the other hand enjoyed it immensely :p And I found it creepy. Not scary, but creepy. It'd have given me all out nightmares had I seen it as a nipper though. Dolls. And dollhouses urgh.

Monkeys with ceramic heads and hands would have been better.
And mirrors. Always mirrors.

Glad you enjoyed it - hope they get a lot of positive feedback and the lovely Mark Gatiss gets more work. And he works on giving me teh Fear.

If twitter is anything to go by then a fair few parents found themselves with extra small bodies in their beds :p

hello!!!

I've lightly skimmed this thread alert to the repeated occurrences of the word "spoiler"... We just watched the first episode of some Doctor Who series, though I don't know which era(?). It has a lot of pink in the beginning, a cute blond gal is attacked by mannequins, etc etc. no spoiler there. It was very entertaining! I'd welcome some more discussion but want no spoilers, please.

TIA!

I think you've just seen Rose Tyler :)
And her Doctor is Christopher Ecclestone. Intense man in a leather jacket?
He's the Ninth Doctor. Ideally I wouldn't tell you that he's not the current Doctor, but this thread and the David Tennant thread immediately give it away.

Dana liked him, I was wary.

The episodes are great fun though, and you will be introduced to characters who continue into the next series. In hindsight I loved Ecclestone's series - he brought the Doctor back with a real bang. The series is the longest running science fiction show in the world - going back to 1963. Dana and Wolf might tell you otherwise, but I think you'd be crazy to go back any further than you have already (obviously the very earliest are no longer accessible anyway).

And do NOT watch the Peter Cushing films - they are ridiculous. And worse than that, not even considered canon.

Even if you start with Rose (the episode I think you saw) it's a commitment - that was 2005! Personally, I think it's worth it, because there were long breaks between the series, and the majority are well worth watching. Chill out and enjoy weekly.

ETA. The spoilers here are only really spoilers for people about to watch the new series. Weeks or maybe months behind the UK. You'll not read anything that makes sense to you now. Me, personally, in my own personal opinion... I'd start exactly where you're starting and don't worry about how many you have to go. There are story arcs and stand alone episodes and you can join at any point. So start at the start of a season.

And you have some real treats ahead of you if you start with the Ninth Doctor. Personally speaking.

Yes, it sounds like you watched the first episode of the modern run of the series, with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor (short buzzed hair, leather jacket.) As an American fan who has watched all of the modern episodes (Doctors Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, and Matt Smith, in that order,) I will tell you that Eccleston was my least favorite doctor... so it gets even better from here on out! :) Keep up with the episodes, you won't be disappointed. I had more typed out, but I'm not sure how non-spoilery you want me to keep it, so I'll refrain for now.

*smiles*

Actually, the very, very earliest are available. The very first serial was 'An Unearthly Child' with William Hartnell as a strange Edwardian style figure, not entirely trustworthy and not exactly warm. Travelling with him was his granddaughter, Susan.

They'd parked the Tardis in an old junkyard, and the very first thing we see are the gates to Potter's Yard and a policeman walking the beat.

I watched it about two years ago and really enjoyed it. Very different show back then. And a very different character.

I think there's one more complete serial and a few half extant serials. Plus a few odd episodes, a single part of a serial sometimes survived.



@ V: Sounds like you watched 'Rose', which reintroduced the Doctor to TV. Just keep watching from there :p Hell of a journey, but not that much of a commitment when you consider the length of each season. With only 12-13 episodes a season and a Christmas special each year, plus one year where there was no season just four specials, the entire back catalogue of nu-Who equates to an average box set of most American series.

I see anything I can't catch up with over a weekend as a commitment, especially as I get burnout if I watch more than three episodes of something back to back. Even something I love like Torchwood or Queer as Folk.

I know YMMV ;)

lol

I on the other hand will quite happily obsess on something enough to munch through the entire back catalogue of a major sci-fi franchise in a matter of days, weeks or months. I think it took me about three or four months to watch all the Stargates...starting at the first episode of SG1, going right through the ten years' worth of that show, plus the five seasons of SG: Atlantis, two seasons of SGU, and two SG1 films. That's about 350 episodes plus two feature lengths.


About 50 of those episodes I watched more than once. Mum and I watched the first two seasons of SG1 together during that same few months.

*grins*

But then I was desparately avoiding working on my MA at the time :P

Check out this awesome (amd I mean awesome, my jaw's on the floor) set of videos, by a young violinist, doing his rendition of three of Murray Gold's Doctor Who tracks:



The Doctor Who Theme (11thDoc):

I am the Doctor (11th Doctor's theme):

Vale Decem (Farewell to the Tenth): .

A capella version (with amusing lyrics)

http://youtu.be/l2rfTR1PJkk

Dani, I hope you remember I am terrible with ALL faces, and not just racist...
But it took me a second viewing to realise they were all him.
To me, if you change your hairstyle and clothes then you are a stranger!

Sperlock, that was cute.
I couldn't watch it though.
I scrolled down and enjoyed the sound.
Loved the JB reference.

So what "Doctor Who" happened in my life today?
Turns out Mrs M doesn't use the sand-timers we did in Reception.
Oh no.
She plays the Doctor Who theme tune.
Everyone needs to be changed for PE by the time the theme finishes.

WOW!

It certainly inspired Alex (real name, because there are at least two in every class).
In Reception he vied with Ak & Al for being last every changing session.
He wasn't first today, but he was ready exactly as the music ended.

The Doctor has powers Moffat hasn't even explored yet.
Or Murray Gold does.

I cried until I had puffy eyes tonight.
I felt like I'd read a Kate Atkinson novel (excellent writer, she just hits nerves).

I could set myself off now if I thought it through again.

Anyway.
Shake head and blink.
Looks like the scariest episode is yet to come!

Yeah. That was a lovely one.

I'm so upset. Our DVR recorded the wrong channel (it's an occasional bug with our machine) for both "Let's Kill Hitler" and "Night Terrors." We were behind on watching the episodes, so we didn't notice it right away. Now all we can do is hope they get re-broadcast sometime soon. The series is just on pause for us until then. Gah!


Edit: Oh! OH! I was inspired to go check the schedule again and see when we might get our missing episodes replayed... and we just got them in the wee hours this morning! And that means we can catch up this evening and still be on schedule for the newest (American broadcast) episode tonight. Yay!

[slightly off-topic]

And can I just say, for the record, that I think it's utterly retarded that BBC America shows all these American movies all the time, with the apparent criteria that they each have a single UK actor in them? Hunt for Red October... The Shining... Superman 2 fer Chrissakes! There have got to be at least a handful of worthy British movies they could show. Hell, they could just show Trainspotting every night, I bet it would still get them better ratings than Superman 2.

[now back to your regularly scheduled Who discussions]

Michelle and I finally watched all the newer Doctor Who seasons and were ready to watch along with everyone else when Let's Kill Hitler came on 2 weeks ago.

Then we discovered that we don't get BBC America through Xfinity...FUCK!!!

So I bought it from iTunes and we get it 8 hours after it's shown on TV. But as of Monday, we'll have AT&T U-Verse, and we WILL have BBC America on our level of channels. So now we can watch along with everyone else...

It's the little things. :)

The new episode was pretty good...quite enjoyable. This season has been a real mindfuck so far.

It seems to me that Amy and Rory would be more interested in finding their baby while she's still a baby than in visiting the second best tourist spot in the universe.

Or have they given up on raising her now that they've met her?

But, outside of the placement of the episode in the overall plot, it was a very good one.

It's complicated.
They already know that they don't raise her.

And it's not like they had any chance to prepare for a birth.
It was literally wake up one day - oh, hello - baby!
Amy had no sense of carrying her and therefore Rory had even less connection.

They had more of a relationship with RS than they ever did with their baby - especially given that the one they cooed over was plastic.

blah blah blah blah blah

I CAN'T HEAR YOU CAUSE MY FINGERS ARE STUCK IN MY EARS!!!

----


And also cause I don't want to know... yet.

Yes, it was Rosie we met the other night. We have a copy of the box set and we're just gorging on it. Unfortunately, we've stalled at the end of disc 2. Because we don't have disc 3. The prospects of getting disc 3 in the immediate future are grim.

Eventually, we'l get it, but until then, I'm just frustrated.

V, you might want to post any reviews/ opinions in this thread. It's a very short one about the return of the Doctor. No spoilers at all!
Whovians here will always check out new threads with the Doctor in the title.

Then you can move onto the Dr Who - David Tennant thread.
And then eventually this one.

Because although most of us are careful about spoilers, we might forget what comes where.
Oh and someone on here somewhere (not me sadly) might be able to help with a third disk? Which somehow slipped through the rift or something...

And you can always watch online.
Which I admit might not be practical if you're watching en masse.

If you haven't seen the last third you have missed out. Big Time.
You'll understand when you see them.

Amy already got to see her all throughout her childhood--she was Mel, Amy's childhood best friend. That's why Mel said, "See, you got to raise me after all."

I can deal with handwavey timey-wimey stuff with the science of Doctor Who, but not so much with handwavey human nature. I can't see Amy and Rory just accepting that.

Perhaps it could be fixed with some timey-wimey science, and have a scene where it is spelled out that due to their interaction with Mel and River, it is impossible to rescue the baby. Unless I missed that scene, it just seems odd for them to go galivanting off on new adventures.

...

You know what? I just found out that I did miss a scene. Apparently it was only on BBC America! Though it apparently didn't have the Doctor telling her no, it did have Amy going through her grieving process. I'm mostly satisfied.

Do you mean the prequel? If so, that's a lovely scene and available on youtube.

Just checked...it's stream-able on Netflix :)

Did you know that Mark Gatiss's husband is Ian Hallard?
I knew he'd married a man called Ian, and he dedicates all his books to him, but I didn't realise it was Hallard the Big Finish actor.

There you go.

Did not know that!


They all seem to be from the same cultural pool.

i think if you're a Doctor Who fan of a certain age, working in the entertainment industry, you probably are acquainted with all the other Doctor Who fans of a certain age working within the entertainment industry.

Oh aye.
And other connections too.
I knew The League had worked with Andy Nyman, and threfore was not in the least surprised to see them with Derren Brown. In the same series as guest stars (I think) Pegg and Tennant.

Liked the last episode.
Goodly wrapped up the series.

I still refer back to my sad, sad cartoon of the Silence though.
(when I say "my" I didn't draw it of course).
Poor chicks. I'd give them kisses.
If'n they didn't play with ma heid.

Last night's ep was pretty good...looking forward to seeing how next year's specials play out.

I've had a crush on Alex Kingston since she was on ER...she's still hot...rrrawr!

Doctor Who movie? Not canon with the TV series?

I'm skeptical.

..

I had no idea that Gantok in The Wedding of River Song was the lovely Mark Gatiss.
Rewatched it and still only knew because I knew.
Heavy prosthetics and a (foreign) accent means I can forgive myself.

Conversation between Mr. Clod and me last night:

Him: Oh hey, looks like Amy's not going to be the companion anymore.
Me: Who's the new one gonna be?
Him: Some hot chick.
Me: Well duh, it's always a hot chick.
Him: Not always...!
Me: Yes, because remember British people think Rose was attractive.
Him: ...Oh, right. They do, don't they?

I found Amy Pond to be the prettiest companion; but, Karen Gillan to be the least convincing actress.

Rose was supposed to be attractive in a girl next door kind of way. An ordinary lass from a council estate.

Exactly. Not a model, or someone who would aspire to be one.
Just a cute girl you might fancy if she served you in Woolworths (RIP).

I always found her attractive, and I'm not British.

She's certainly not ugly. Her features just seem... alien, I guess. The mouth and jaw seem drastically out of proportion to me. In all the promo shots for the show she looks fine. Great, even. It's when she's talking, when the jaw is moving... what's that called, the phenomenon where the more human an AI thing looks, the creepier it is? It's like that.

her insane overbite does make her speech a little uncanny-valley, i guess, yeah...

I wouldn't call it an insane overbite. Just unusual for a star.


I always liked her. I think she was really sweet as Rose. But then you see her in some other stuff and she looks pretty in a different way.

Went off to find an example of Billie in other roles and happened upon a promo for Secret Diary of a Call Girl, and guess who pops up (so to speak) about 50 seconds in?

Matt Smith!

Don't know if it's true or not; but, I remember reading somewhere that Billie Piper had dental veneer work done in the time frame between when she was the regular companion and when she reprised the role in later episodes. Her speech was certainly different and it wasn't just her accent. All in all Billie Piper's Rose is my favorite companion to date, though I think some of the finest acting for a companion character came out of Catherine Tate at times.

as long as river song stays. in some ways she's more awesome then the doctor.

Alex Kingston really makes that character sing.

The chemistry between her and Matt Smith is great too.

Don't hate me for the music.
But this is probably the slickest clips compilation I have come across in a long time.

Whoverse Hoedown.
Inc Jack & Ianto for a start...