Dr Who: Dark Water

Jul 13, 2010
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Tanis said:
A bit irked Missy wasn't The Rani.

Also:
How they gonna explain the whole 'End of Time' deal?
Yeah I was expecting the Rani as well, or maybe even the Doctor's granddaughter when she started talking about being abandoned by him, though I think I actually knew beforehand that the Master was turning up this series. I think they are actually going to use the End of Time to their advantage, seeing as, if the Master didn't die, then he would be stuck on Gallifrey with the other timelords, which means he/she found a way out. I suspect this will eventually be tying into the Doctor's greater search Gallifrey.
 

Albino Boo

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elvor0 said:
albino boo said:
In the 5 Doctors it was stated that Time Lords had two pulses.
thaluikhain said:
It was mentioned that he had a "double pulse".The earliest example I can think of goes back to John Pertwee's first story Spearhead from Space, where two hearts was mentioned by a confused doctor.
Oh yes, but does double pulse constitute or stated to be them beating at the same time or the 4 beat rhythm(as I personally don't know the specific definition of "double pulse" if one exists)? Or is it left to the viewers imagination? It's been some time since I've watched classic who, so bear with me :)

Although, even with that being the case, some people have mentioned the doctor being examined and nothing being made of it. So even with the double pulse being stated with Pertwee, it could still be a "retcon" if nothing was made of Hartnell and Troughtons Doctors when or if they were examined.

albino boo said:
There is no such thing as cannon in Dr Who and never has been. The entire show has been run on the principle that what the Dr can ans cannot do is entirely about what suits the dramatic purpose of the writers. Even as something as basic as regeneration. When its first happened it was called rejuvenation and was property of the Tardis. The Second Dr into the 3rd was a punishment imposed by the Timelords. Only with 3rd to fourth do we get get the classic regeneration. However even then when Romana regenerated she had full control of her appearance breaking with was established before. The fourth to fifth regeneration featured a glowing mummy following around the Dr before merging to create the incarnation.

This isn't Star Trek or Star Wars, they just make it as they go along and always have done. If you want cannon, stop watching because you will always be disappointed.
 
Jul 13, 2010
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Sonic Doctor said:
You do realize that there never was a call for a female Doctor until the new series(where bad writers made stupid hits that it could be possible).
So? Are writers not allowed to do something unless they are sure their audience actively wants it beforehand?

Sonic Doctor said:
I don't give a shit about Neil Gaimen's episode, in that it goes in with the people that have no right putting in non-canon points in episodes that they are given the privilege to write.
And who decides who does have the right? If there is anyone in the world who decides who has that right, it's the show's lead writer, and Moffat is obvious more than ok with gender changing being canaon.

Sonic Doctor said:
Yes the Daleks and Cybermen have come back many times, but it is always by ways that fit fine with canon. The Master could have come back in a way that fit with canon, the last we saw of him was he was going back to Gallifrey as it was thrown back into the Time War, and the Time Lords would have the power to give him a new regeneration cycle. But him being female is against canon, but I'd be against it if he had changed into anything other than a male human looking person of one race.
Except, like gender changing regenerations, the current Cybermen have absolutely nothing to do with the old series and its canon, other than they were both living things in metal bodies called Cybermen. As for Missy being the Master, like I said above, the return of an old character would have been nice, but the Master turning up makes total sense. We know the show is heading towards Gallifrey at some point, and since the Master was the only Timelord we're sure was Gallifrey that would pull stuff like this, it was pretty likely he/she would turn up soon.

Sonic Doctor said:
I don't give a crap if some new viewers would be puzzled and say "who?" If they want to watch the show and experience the franchise, they better damn well learn the back story and things that could come up from the past.
That's a really unrealistic way to look at it. For one, a huge amount of the show's fans are children, should the writers just decide to screw them and write only for the hardcore fans?

Sonic Doctor said:
Again, the show is headed in the direction I suspecting that Moffat is shifting it, the show will be dead to me. If the Doctor regenerates into a woman, the show is dead, at the point the entity that is the Doctor, is fully dead. Oh and before anybody tries to say it is a sexist thing or whatever, no it has nothing to do with anything like that. It all has to do with canon and sticking to continuity. I would be just as angry if it was a race change or he changed into some non-human looking creature. If people want a show similar to Doctor Who with a female lead, then they should just make their own show, don't mess with things that are established and don't need changing.
Except this doesn't contradict any canon or continuity, while there are other huge parts of the show that do, old series included. If you know the show as well is you seem to, you'd know, while the current Daleks have the same back story they had at the end of the old series, it's nothing like their back story was when William Hartnell first encountered them. Similarly, what happens when paradoxes occur is constantly changing, as does any concept of what and when fixed points in time are. The show's continuity has been incredibly weak for literally decades, so it does look quite suspicious when people cry foul on this one in particular.
 

Thaluikhain

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Sonic Doctor said:
You do realize that there never was a call for a female Doctor until the new series(where bad writers made stupid hits that it could be possible).
Not true. Having a male timelord regenerate into a female one never happened, or was even mentioned in old Dr Who, but it was something the fans would bring up a lot. When a doctor was announced to be leaving, there was always speculation about their replacement, for the last few originals at least, there was talk of a female one. I believe an actress from Babylon 5 was mentioned in that context, because JNT like putting in people from other sci-fi shows (Blake's 7 comes to mind). Nothing came of it, of course, but it was definitely something people called for.
 

Lilani

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Tanis said:
A bit irked Missy wasn't The Rani.

Also:
How they gonna explain the whole 'End of Time' deal?
I imagine they'll tie it in with the nethersphere and the Cybermen. Perhaps when the Master died last time he ended up in the nethersphere, and the Cybermen realized they could use the Master to instigate a takeover, so they found some way to get him a body and let him keep his autonomy. Perhaps that nethersphere was some Time Lord technology the Master hijacked when he got there and began to make work for himself, and the Cybermen then discovered a use for it and teamed up with him for their plan. Or he isn't autonomous and is under the cybermen's control, one of the two. Honestly I hope he isn't under their control, I think a Master teamed up with the cybermen voluntarily is much more terrifying and interesting than a Master who is under their control.

I liked this one, definitely a marked improvement from previous weeks. I still love the Doctor and Clara's chemistry, and I love that they didn't drag the betrayal thing out. We all know they'll find a way to work it out, we don't need any more stories or arcs dedicated to Clara and the Doctor learning to trust one another. That doesn't mean their trust can't be tested, but we don't need to keep doing the "will she, won't he" thing in order to do that.

Fieldy409 said:
Im really suprised at the big reveal....
You know, this whole time I was tricked. When when she was saying she came back, that she lived in 'heaven' and when she kissed him. Until the last minute I was absolutely convinced she was some sort of angry embittered River Song back from the dead, pissed off at the doctor for leaving him in the library. I suppose she could still be and just be lieing eh? Most of the time I am predicting the return of the master with any character whose identity is vague and this time I was wrong because I was predicting River.
I thought the same thing! The only time I began to doubt was when she said "The one you left for dead." Because in the end he didn't leave her for dead, she volunteered, and had to handcuff him to keep from rescuing her.

I can't say if I like her being the Master yet simply because we haven't really learned what her motivations and goals are, but I'm excited to see where they go with it.
 

Lilani

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thaluikhain said:
Sonic Doctor said:
You do realize that there never was a call for a female Doctor until the new series(where bad writers made stupid hits that it could be possible).
Not true. Having a male timelord regenerate into a female one never happened, or was even mentioned in old Dr Who, but it was something the fans would bring up a lot. When a doctor was announced to be leaving, there was always speculation about their replacement, for the last few originals at least, there was talk of a female one. I believe an actress from Babylon 5 was mentioned in that context, because JNT like putting in people from other sci-fi shows (Blake's 7 comes to mind). Nothing came of it, of course, but it was definitely something people called for.
It hasn't "happened" to a known character, but the Doctor has mentioned it in passing in the new series. In the Doctor's Wife episode where the heart of the TARDIS is stuck into a lady, the Doctor talks about a Time Lord called the Corsair, who he described as "A great man, and sometimes woman." Whether or not that possibility was inspired by fans is up for debate, but regardless it is canon in the New Who that Time Lords can regenerate into different genders.
 

AliasBot

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Lilani said:
thaluikhain said:
Sonic Doctor said:
You do realize that there never was a call for a female Doctor until the new series(where bad writers made stupid hits that it could be possible).
Not true. Having a male timelord regenerate into a female one never happened, or was even mentioned in old Dr Who, but it was something the fans would bring up a lot. When a doctor was announced to be leaving, there was always speculation about their replacement, for the last few originals at least, there was talk of a female one. I believe an actress from Babylon 5 was mentioned in that context, because JNT like putting in people from other sci-fi shows (Blake's 7 comes to mind). Nothing came of it, of course, but it was definitely something people called for.
It hasn't "happened" to a known character, but the Doctor has mentioned it in passing in the new series. In the Doctor's Wife episode where the heart of the TARDIS is stuck into a lady, the Doctor talks about a Time Lord called the Corsair, who he described as "A great man, and sometimes woman." Whether or not that possibility was inspired by fans is up for debate, but regardless it is canon in the New Who that Time Lords can regenerate into different genders.
More recently, there was also "The Night of the Doctor," the prequel to the 50th Anniversary special with Paul McGann. The Sisters of Karn offer him the option to control his regeneration: "Fat or thin, young or old, man or woman?" So it's been brought up a few times in canon.

Anyway, I'm okay with the whole "female Master" thing, though I'm a bit surprised they actually went through with it. As for the rest of the episode, I thought it was pretty solid, though it will be hard to judge until after "Death in Heaven," when all of the plot holes will be firmly either resolved or unresolved. Even knowing it was a Cybermen episode (I'm super glad to see them as the big bad for a series instead of the bloody Daleks again, by the way), I didn't make the connection with the dark water until the skeletons were standing, just before the actual reveal. Still managed to be an "oh, shit" moment: the idea of the Cybermen actually being an army of skeletons is a scary thought.

One scene I liked was the one between Clara and her grandmother, with Clara reacting to Danny's death. It fit, somehow: she's been all across the universe, seen many a gruesome or impossible death. To her, death is a flashy affair, maybe even a little bit romantic, in a twisted sort of way. So for someone so much more important to her to die in the most mundane way possible - hit by a car, there one second, gone the next - must genuinely feel like a bit of a raw deal. Normally she has to move on quickly from deaths, because there's someone else to focus on, someone else to save, so when there's nothing else to focus on, something that's more important, it's hard to know how to react. I don't know, it was just a poignant little sequence. I'm kind of hoping Danny stays dead, both because the show has never crossed the line of undoing death (cheated death, sure, but not undone - the only exception I can think of being the Master in "The End of Time," actually), and because it would undo the weight of that moment.
 

Matthewmagic

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So I thought Doctor Who has been going down the tubes since season 5. I never really liked Matt Smith, but I liked his companions alot and capaldi is growing on me little by little.

Still this whole season felt... dull. I suppose every episode I had to make a conscious decision whether or not to watch the next one and nostalgia is doing a lot of the legwork for me here.

However! I adored this episode. I like missy, I don't mind clara, Danny is boring, and Capaldi is at his best here. This is the best the show has been since The Big Bang and hopefully the show is hitting it's stride again.
 

Matthewmagic

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So maybe this is just me and mind you I'm just saying. Not offended I don't even care all that much.
But knowing who missy is.
Is it weird to you that she put the moves on the doctor?

In the context that the previous master never seemed to have any inclination towards the doctor. Okay maybe regeneration can change sexual preference that being said there is a good chance a previous doctor and master where gay. Who tries to fuck their mortal enemy?

I'm just saying that for the sake of character consistency they either should have left it out.

or retconned us some hot david tennant on John Simm action if only to justify my fanfic :p
 

Thaluikhain

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Matthewmagic said:
So maybe this is just me and mind you I'm just saying. Not offended I don't even care all that much.
But knowing who missy is.
Is it weird to you that she put the moves on the doctor?

In the context that the previous master never seemed to have any inclination towards the doctor. Okay maybe regeneration can change sexual preference that being said there is a good chance a previous doctor and master where gay. Who tries to fuck their mortal enemy?

I'm just saying that for the sake of character consistency they either should have left it out.

or retconned us some hot david tennant on John Simm action if only to justify my fanfic :p
Not really. Sure, kissing is a bit more than usual, but their always was an obsession, and doing things just to weird the Doctor out. You'll notice that she stops doing that after the Doctor knows who she is.
 

Matthewmagic

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thaluikhain said:
Matthewmagic said:
So maybe this is just me and mind you I'm just saying. Not offended I don't even care all that much.
But knowing who missy is.
Is it weird to you that she put the moves on the doctor?

In the context that the previous master never seemed to have any inclination towards the doctor. Okay maybe regeneration can change sexual preference that being said there is a good chance a previous doctor and master where gay. Who tries to fuck their mortal enemy?

I'm just saying that for the sake of character consistency they either should have left it out.

or retconned us some hot david tennant on John Simm action if only to justify my fanfic :p
Not really. Sure, kissing is a bit more than usual, but their always was an obsession, and doing things just to weird the Doctor out. You'll notice that she stops doing that after the Doctor knows who she is.
I guess we will have to see the next episode before we can start partitioning for a gay/black/jewish doctor :D!
 

Thaluikhain

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Oh, one thing that annoyed me is when the Doctor asks "Why would anyone want to see their dead relatives?" or something, when that is something lots of cultures do anyway.

Similarly, that ep with the mermaid, when the Doctor says that a wedding ring is universal throughout the universe, when it's not even universal in the real world. Lots of people doing something where you live doesn't mean it's the only way it could be.

(OTOH, maybe it's because there's a new wave of British imperialism in the future, and their culture replaces all others, which would make an interesting story, if handled carefully)
 

Sonic Doctor

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Hiramas said:
But even in that case, I would be perfectly fine with a ret-con of this fact in favor of adapting the show to our time.
My view is that a show should learn to survive without adapting to the times, or just die. I can tell you right now that the whole possibility of the Doctor becoming a woman thing is a giant tick box. A show that has been so successful on the same formula as long as Doctor Who has, doesn't just over the course of a few years with little hints and points, radically change like they planning to.

This change will be without purpose. I've watched enough shows, shows that went down the drain, to know that when a show lays on stupid hints at things, like Doctor Who has over the past few years, the change will happen.

I can't stand it when shows do the whole, we have change so our stories fit with the everyday life and views of our viewers and the current state of entertainment, and have messages that go along with current events. The reason Doctor Who's formula is wrongly being changed is because over the past decade, there has been a movement for rolls to change and fit with what random small groups want. The Doctor Who thing is going along with the, "We have to change our main character to a woman 'because that is progressive'", but then when there is backlash from core fans, because it doesn't fit with the show and canon, they get called sexist, even though it has nothing to do with that.

I'm a tired of shows being changed by "movements" and social matters. Why can't a show be a show and do as it always has. It is a fictional world that has set rules and established structure. People need to let stories and shows stay the way they are/have been. Why the hell is it so hard for people that want something extremely different to just go off and make their own thing? Why the hell do they have change the established works to fit their views and wants.

As person that does a large amount of writing of my own original stories with my own universes and worlds, it is the one thing I dread when it comes to publishing and having my works out there and possibly become successful. There are too many people that love to latch onto successful peoples works and then change it to their own bastardized vision because they believe their way is the only way, because it fits with "the times" and "the trends"; they can't seem to let a story/franchise be just what it is.

I hate ret-coning when it is done the bad way. The only time ret-coning should be done is if something new, that is stupid, is added to an established show/franchise, that screws with canon.

Example: I would say that Abrams-Trek needs to be ret-conned. People love to say, "But it is an alternate universe!", but what they fail to remember is that Spock and Nero who are involved in the events, come form the main universe, and their actions which Abrams and his writers came up with, changed things in the main universe(Romulus's sun going supernova, and the start of good relations between the Romulans and Federation, that occurred at the end of Nemesis, broke down. This is seen in the MMO Star Trek Online. By the way, Abrams movies messed with Star Trek Online. It was in development before Abrams movies, and they were going to have a proper main universe future affected by things that happened in main universe series and movies, but Abrams began work on his movie got enough weight/say, that he forced them to change it to fit in the effects of what would happen in the main universe, because of the things that happened in his story.


Hiramas said:
off topic, I agree with you on Abrams-Trek, though I am a little more optimistic about Star Wars since he actually seems to like that. And he seems to has the rule: Do the opposite the prequels did, wich can only end better.

Concerning SGU, I actually did not hate hit. It wasn't the best but it was ok and it would be interesting to see where it would have gone. Though at this point I really believe SG has to rest a few years longer. A new, more TNG/DS9 oriented Star Trek show (Dominion War aftermath/cleanup, SOOO many stories there!) would be terrific, though!
Have you seen the new storm-trooper helmets. They are chrome, very shiny chrome. You might as well call them JJ's lens flare troopers.

SGU failed because it did the thing a loved established franchise should never do, change the story telling style and formula, along with filming style.

SGU was not filmed in the same style SG-1 and SGA. It was filmed in the style of Battlestar Galactica, with that gritty speckled look(like someone forgot to dust off the camera lens), along with all the horribly unnecessary close-ups of peoples faces as they talked.
On the story telling style and formula change: The big part that made SG-1 and SGA great and interesting, was the gate travel to other worlds, seeing other cultures and aliens and the different planets. It was the main focus of the shows. If Stargate didn't have that, it wouldn't have had anything interesting to work with.
SGU failed because the creators made the show about people, it was heavily focused on characters stories were around 85% or more of each episode was about the characters and there problems with their situation and each other. There were no good strange planet stories, yeah there were a couple interesting planets they ended up at, but the stories were so focused on the characters, the planets never saw enough spotlight. There were two alien races that were extremely lightly touched on. I can't begin to tell you much about them, because I have zero information to go on, other than the first one was hostile, and the second one was cautious and not really hostile. And finally, for a show about traveling to and studying an old Ancient ship, very little studying of said ship got done.

In the end, the ratings tanked, because core fans of the franchise and mid-rim fans beyond that stopped watching because it wasn't Stargate. SyFy then canceled it and gave the bullshit explanation that the show didn't do well because they aired it on a bad night, ignoring the droves of fans that were yelling at them, telling them the exact reason they didn't watch, and it certainly wasn't because of the night it aired.
 

Zontar

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Sonic Doctor said:
In the end, the ratings tanked, because core fans of the franchise and mid-rim fans beyond that stopped watching because it wasn't Stargate. SyFy then canceled it and gave the bullshit explanation that the show didn't do well because they aired it on a bad night, ignoring the droves of fans that were yelling at them, telling them the exact reason they didn't watch, and it certainly wasn't because of the night it aired.
Actually the ratings only tanked in seasons 2, after it was moved to the death-time slot. Yes there where fans who where angry, but no more then where angry about Atlantis being different from SG1, and like Atlantis there where new fans who filled the void the old ones who where unwilling to accept the change left.

I means hell, even if you wanted to watch it, having it moved from 8 on Friday to 10 on Tuesday with no ads mentioning that it was back sure didn't help keep ratings. Remember that the timeslot change wasn't used by SyFy as their defence, it was used as the accusation by us fans for why it got canned in the first place. It was SyFy which pushed the "fans left it because they didn't like it" idea.
 

Thaluikhain

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Sonic Doctor said:
Hiramas said:
But even in that case, I would be perfectly fine with a ret-con of this fact in favor of adapting the show to our time.
My view is that a show should learn to survive without adapting to the times, or just die. I can tell you right now that the whole possibility of the Doctor becoming a woman thing is a giant tick box. A show that has been so successful on the same formula as long as Doctor Who has, doesn't just over the course of a few years with little hints and points, radically change like they planning to.
Then Doctor Who should have died many years ago. The show keeps changing and re-inventing itself.

What formula has Doctor Who always had? It started off as being about a grumpy unlikeable old guy, his granddaughter, and two random school teachers that didn't want to be there, and every third story was a pure historical one which was intended as educational. The vast majority of stories used to be 4 or 6 parters, with a few 7 or 8. The Doctor spent time being James Bond working for a government agency, later he became a Hammer Horror movie star.

If you were to watch the first old who Dalek story and the last old who Dalek story back to back, they aren't obviously the same show. Hell, watch Black Orchid, Earthshock and Timeflight back to back and they aren't obviously the same show, and those stories were back to back.