Doctor Who Chrimbo Special

rosac

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Merry christmas to all!

What did you think of yesterdays doctor who episode?

Personally I really enjoyed it, it felt like a bit of a love letter to the campy superman films of yesteryear. Maybe a bit too much focus on the romance but I loved the superhero, the villains were different and the plan they had actually made a bit of sense even if the end game wasn't clear. Matt Lucas and the Doctor were great, the supporting cast... well they did their jobs. Good implication for the future with the UNIT officer at the end (although this wasn't explained all that well) and the fact there's 5 more of those gemstones knocking about.

It's unlikely but I would like to see the Ghost return at some point. Maybe some implication if he has a child as the gemstone is bound to his DNA?

Strangely my only worry is that the new companion for the next series is going to annoy the hell out of me. We shall see.
 

Random Argument Man

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I thought that it was ok. The preview for the season pretty much showed what you would suspect with a new companion. I just hope we skip the "What's this and what's that?" phase rather quickly.
 

Hawki

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I'm not fond of it, and it really surprised me that Moffatt wrote it, because it didn't feel like his usual work.

I found the whole superhero thing to be superfluous - if you wanted to parody/do homage to superheroes, fine, but go all the way. This felt like a regular Doctor Who episode that just happened to have a superhero in it because...superheroes are popular these days? Also, the Harmony plan. It's silly. Yes, world leaders would be spooked by New York being destroyed, but I'm pretty sure command protocols would have heads of state going to military/government locations, not into corporate offices, one of which suspiciously survived a starship impact. And who the heck said "huh, you want this building to be able to survive four atom bombs? Sure, I'm down with that." And since Grant has his powers still, I have to ask what the heck he'll be doing every time Earth comes under threat. In this, it's a bit like Moffatt with the Statue of Liberty being a Weeping Angel. It sounds cool, but falls apart if you actually think how that will work.

So, yeah. Not that good, to be honest. There were a few things I liked, such as the Pokemon Go reference, as well as the shoutout to River Song/the Husbands of River Song episode, but this felt like your average Doctor Who episode with a lot of "stuff" in it. And coming off from the last season, which was one of the strongest in awhile, that's quite a shame.
 

votemarvel

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I gave up watching about 20 minutes from the end. I just found it to be dull and I found every performance in it to be uninteresting.
 

Phasmal

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I only saw like 5 minutes of it round someone else's house on Christmas, where the Doctor seemed to be talking to a guy about the friendzone. I don't feel like I've missed out much.

Don't mind me, I'm quite bitter that all my enthusiasm for Doctor Who seems to have evaporated. I don't know whether it's me or it's the show, but I lost interest around when Peter Capaldi took over. Nothing against him, of course, and I feel like I didn't even give him a proper chance, but I just can't stand the writing most of the time.
 

Hawki

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Phasmal said:
Don't mind me, I'm quite bitter that all my enthusiasm for Doctor Who seems to have evaporated. I don't know whether it's me or it's the show, but I lost interest around when Peter Capaldi took over. Nothing against him, of course, and I feel like I didn't even give him a proper chance, but I just can't stand the writing most of the time.
I'm kind of on the fence with Doctor Who right now.

I feel the writing's gotten better in the most recent season (this most recent episode aside), but overall, it's been on a downward streak since Moffatt took over. I'll echo what many others have said, that Moffatt tends to be good for individual episodes, but as a showrunner? Not so much.

On the other hand, I've watched quite a bit of "old Who" over the years thanks to the libraries I work at stocking the DVDs, and I'll be honest, if anything, the writing's generally of lower quality there. Oh sure, every so often you get episodes like The Caves of Androzani or The Robots of Death, but I find them to be an exception to the rule. So, while I probably put Davis's run on a pedastal (since I was introduced to DW there, and Tennant really sold the show for me), I can't help but wonder if it's a case of "it's not you, it's me," that I've simply grown out of DW. Granted, it's obstensibly a kid's show, but I've generally found it to be enjoyable as a teenager/adult as well, just not as much in recent years. Maybe it isn't down to Moffatt at all, but down to a combination of getting older or other extraneous factors.

Which sucks. Because for all its flaws, I can't fault DW in regards to the variety of its ideas, and there's not much on TV nowadays that use its model (the idea of every episode being unique ala Twilight Zone) anymore, but, yeah. There's a lot of good TV around nowadays, but DW seems to have slipped by the wayside. :(

But, I will say that as far as the Doctors of the revived series go, I do like Capaldi more than Smith, so there is that I guess.
 

pookie101

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Phasmal said:
I only saw like 5 minutes of it round someone else's house on Christmas, where the Doctor seemed to be talking to a guy about the friendzone. I don't feel like I've missed out much.

Don't mind me, I'm quite bitter that all my enthusiasm for Doctor Who seems to have evaporated. I don't know whether it's me or it's the show, but I lost interest around when Peter Capaldi took over. Nothing against him, of course, and I feel like I didn't even give him a proper chance, but I just can't stand the writing most of the time.
id say its capaldi.. he managed to kill my interest in dr who something not even colin baker managed to do playing him as an obnoxious prat
 

09philj

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pookie101 said:
Phasmal said:
I only saw like 5 minutes of it round someone else's house on Christmas, where the Doctor seemed to be talking to a guy about the friendzone. I don't feel like I've missed out much.

Don't mind me, I'm quite bitter that all my enthusiasm for Doctor Who seems to have evaporated. I don't know whether it's me or it's the show, but I lost interest around when Peter Capaldi took over. Nothing against him, of course, and I feel like I didn't even give him a proper chance, but I just can't stand the writing most of the time.
id say its capaldi.. he managed to kill my interest in dr who something not even colin baker managed to do playing him as an obnoxious prat
It's the writing. Malcolm Tucker, Capaldi's character in political satire The Thick of It, is a vision of what Capaldi's doctor could have been like; an aggressive sociopath with a line in flamboyant metaphors, completely disdainful of the self absorbed people who surround him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Blf073f2Lc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu6jO_cxiqQ

Unfortunately, we can't have the kiddie-winks thinking the Doctor isn't nice, so he got his edges well rounded off.
 

Tanis

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Eh...it was okay.

I LOVE Doctor Who, and I adore what Capaldi is trying to do with his version of The Doctor.

But, and a giant ass 'but', the series seems to be getting weaker overall.

It's a damn shame too, but Moffat really is killing the series for me.
:/
 

Hawki

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Tanis said:
Eh...it was okay.

I LOVE Doctor Who, and I adore what Capaldi is trying to do with his version of The Doctor.

But, and a giant ass 'but', the series seems to be getting weaker overall.

It's a damn shame too, but Moffat really is killing the series for me.
:/
If it makes you feel any better, Moffat's stepping aside as showrunner.

Which is a bit of a shame for me, as I thought the most recent season was the strongest since he took over.
 

votemarvel

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My problem with Peter Capaldi's turn as the Doctor is that all his stories seem to have been written with Matt Smith in mind. I was hoping an older Doctor would be a little more serious but he's still the wacky Matt Smith personality in action.

In short they should have played Capaldi closer to Pertwee than Smith.