Doctor Who — Page 48

The technology of shrinking people either alive or to death has been a main stay of the show since 1964. Indeed along with the oversized Dinosaur from last week scale seems to be a theme of the current series.

The Fantastic Voyage angle was more heavily played in The Invisible Enemy where the Doctor and Leela are injected inside the Doctor's brain.

This iteration resembled more Rory and Amy inside the Teselecta in Let's Kill Hitler. Right down to the antibodies and the view down the eye stalk.

In fact the whole episode had a cannibalistic quality to it.

Dalek (the episode) is clearly riffed here (itself pinched from the superior audio drama Jubilee which also gets riffed near the end of this episode). There was touches of The Beast Below when they dropped into the stomach of the Dalek, there was a dollop of the awful Nightmare in Silver when the Rusty and the Doctor shared a mind meld. There is a call back to The End of the World with Danny's tear at the mention of some past war trauma. And then there was the clip show segment. It would make sense that Daleks would share memories but this one seems to share it's memories with us (all the shots being pulled from NuWho episodes from the cameraman's POV). At least in Love and Monsters they re-filmed past events from Elton's perspective, clip show sequences quickly cheapen a series.

That all said I loved the Daleks back as the real Daleks exterminating people without the risk of someone accidentally becoming a god or half Timelord or a crying child to spoil the carnage.

I loved the fact the Dalek didn't become sweet and reformed but just changed allegiances because of what it had learned. And the disappointment parked in that revelation. If the Doctor finds Gallifrey can he undo the damage the war has done to his own culture.

Can he save individuals like the Master or indeed himself?

If the only good Dalek is himself what does that say about the new direction he is heading in? Really Capaldi should have been the War Doctor he is much more battle hardened and world weary than cuddly uncle John. He still has a disgust aimed at former warriors despite being one himself.

Then there is Danny. Lovely chap, he feels like the Doctor everyone would have preferred. Nice to look at for the fangirls/fangays. He has the post Eccleston guilt and he has a heck of a lot of mystery behind him. Like 'gun-girl' he has a colour themed surname (girl is blue he is pink). Is this a pointer to an object of jewelery? Was Missy his victim? With "gun-girl' we get a possible explanation of Missy's "boy-friend" comments last week.

Boyhood friend who wears a ring and shrinks people and is known by the dead...hmm.

I wish this had been the extended episode to be honest. The important and inexpensive stuff, the character interplay was much more interesting than the story which had not much new to say.

Okay it doesn't sound like they turned away from the dark and depressing angle where Moffat is trying to paint the Doctor as the real villain of the series so rather then watch each week and complain I am done. I will tune back in when Moffat is replaced. The man has lost his touch and destroyed the character of the doctor. For the first time since 95 I am done with Doctor Who:(

Sad to say but i think the show needs a rest of about five years or so and completely new blood.  I think Moffat and the 12th Doctor have broken the show beyond all hope of repair.

^I thank you for your opinion.

I, for one, am loving Capaldi. Deep Breath was hit-or-miss (mostly hit, thankfully, but nowhere near great), and while I disagreed with large chunks of the premise to Into the Dalek, I still enjoyed it and thought it did a great job of showcasing Capaldi's Doctor (more so than Deep Breath).

I get that the "darker Doctor" angle isn't for everyone (my brother decided not to continue after episode 2 as well), which is too bad because I honestly think that Capaldi's Doctor is wonderful. He's a dick to everyone and it's magnificent. Clara has much more chemistry with him than she did with Smith, and that's not a dig against Smith because I thought he was great (Series 7 as a whole is my favorite new-Who season so far, even though everyone else seems to hate it).

Moffat and Capaldi seem to be using Hartnell's Doctor as a sort of template for Twelve, with bits and pieces of Pertwee, T. Baker and McCoy thrown in to even things out. He's starting out as a distant, older figure, secure in his own superiority over everyone else (how many "no time for your shit" scenes have we already gotten with Capaldi?) which, of course, leads to his less accessible, more antagonistic nature. It seems clear to me that his arc will be about the softening of his Doctor, with Clara taking the Ian/Barbara/Susan role. I'm going to predict right now that Clara's departure will heavily echo Susan's when it eventually comes, and Twelve will be much more of a lovable old grandpa/mentor by then (but keeping more of an edge than Hartnell did in his last couple seasons).

All this, I suppose, is to say that I really like the direction the show is going. They seem to be reinventing the show by going back to its roots and letting everything (re)develop from there. Of course, I could be wrong and we might just end up with more of the same, but with a grumpy dickhead Doctor - which I honestly don't think I'd have a problem with - but I think people are jumping to that conclusion pretty early. Two episodes is too little to properly judge Capaldi's take on the Doctor. After all, he's been thinking about how he would play the part his whole life - there's definitely more to it than "grumpy dickhead Doctor," and I think we'll see that by the end of Series 8.

So what do you think about this?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/09/04/the-bbc-removed-a-beheading-scene-from-doctor-who-after-islamic-state-killings/

I think it is silly for two reasons. First off terrorists behead people all the time but the only reason the BBC cares is that this time it was a western reporter,where is the concern for all the non reporters who have been beheaded over the years.

Second if we start changing the way we do things because of what monsters like this do then we are letting them win. I mean people die on Doctor Who every single week are they going to edit an episode every time one of those deaths resembles the way terrorists kill people?  Buildings get blown up all the time on the show and terrorists blow up buildings,why aren't those episodes edited?  I guess because the people who die in bombings are not white reporters so they don't count as tragic deaths in the eyes of the BBC.

Any way that is how i feel,what do you think?

SilverWook said:

Nervous networks are nothing new. The 80's series The Greatest American Hero briefly changed the last name of the main character, from Ralph Hinkley to Ralph Hanley, in the wake of the assassination attempt on President Reagan. The shooter was named John Hinckley.

 Now that is just silly.  What message was the network trying to send any way?  Were they really saying that anyone born with the last name Hinkley was a crazy assassin? Because goodness knows people don't have free will and if they are born with a certain name they will kill.  That is why everyone who has ever been born with the Joseph becomes a dictator and kills millions.

^Turdis.

People have been beheading robots for centuries. Where was HYDRA when AOTC came out?

Okay despite the silly idea and the fact that I didn't like the first episode at all I sat down and watched Into The Dalek and it was a big improvement.  In Mr.Pink Moffat seems to have figured out how to write a mature character who is more then quirks and catchphrases and yet still has flaws. 

Clara starts off not being very likable(I don't know if it's just the fact that I know military people and emergency workers that made this bug me but to me it seems like a no brainer that you don't make jokes about them killing people or not being able to save people.  I mean even if you don't like guns the fact is these people go through hell trying to keep you safe so making bad jokes is just in really poor taste)still she redeems herself by going off with The Doctor at the drop of a hat because he needs her. 

Even the Doctor who I didn't like in the last episode comes off as a little more likable and he seems to have dimensions besides just being depressed.  He is still far too depressed for my liking but if the writing would just lighten up a little I think that could be fixed. While the last episode left no impression on me besides thinking that the show was dead and we were stuck with a flat lead this one at least gives me hope that things can improve. 

Was it perfect?  Far from it the story is silly and the idea that The Doctor is not a good man is still just pure BS that comes out of nowhere without any set up but it was a hug improvement and I didn't hate watching it.  i give it 4.5/10.  That may seem low but after the last episode almost killed the show for me that is a huge improvement and I have hope that maybe by the end of this season the show will pull it's self back up to being average and fun. 

All in all I think this should have been the episode they opened with because it does a much better job of making me like the 12th Doctor then the last episode did.  As I said it's not perfect and I don't think it will win over non fans but as a fan of the show it gives me hope that things can be fixed.

Whatever your views on ISIS they get more publicity doing it this way.

The BBC should have left the sequence the way it was intended or not announced the trim.

Thousands of people get killed by cars each year but they still have car chases on television.

Imagine some kid who has just lost their parents in a robot kidnapped taxi cab watching The Runaway Bride as a distraction, think of the children.

Bingowings said:

Whatever your views on ISIS they get more publicity doing it this way.

The BBC should have left the sequence the way it was intended or not announced the trim.

Thousands of people get killed by cars each year but they still have car chases on television.

Imagine some kid who has just lost their parents in a robot kidnapped taxi cab watching The Runaway Bride as a distraction, think of the children.

 Yeah that is why I am all for spending as little time thinking about Isis as possible,they do this for the attention. We need to show them these tactics will not work.

Oh and don't think i don't feel for people who are beheaded.  When I was in the mental hospital there was an older man there that was a very nice guy and I got to know. He was a vet from the Iraq war who was there because so far 16 civilians that he befriended over in Iraq had been murdered by Isis this year and it had caused him to have a break down. So yeah I have seen first hand the pain this causes but that leaves me with two questions. First how come those 16 deaths of Iraqese that happened first didn't get any media attention,I mean aren't their deaths just as tragic? They were to this guy I met.  Second what do we do about it?  It seems to me that giving them more attention is exactly what they want,so that doesn't seem like the answer to me. I am not sure what the answer is but only caring when white people die and then changing the way we do things because of it just feels wrong to me.

Media bias.

It's like this show.

Every time the Doctor is in it the other team loses, systematically projecting an image this "Who" chap as an hero of some kind.

Do they show a dark clothed bearded Gallifreyan putting some coins in collection tin or in a bath of baked beans for charity?

Never.

So Anthony Ainley frowned Ben Miller's face?

There is also the implication that the actor Patrick Troughton (who now canonically exists in the Doctor Who universe) frowned the face that the second Doctor and Ramón Salamander wore.

There is the third consecutive reference to altered scale (giant dinosaur, mini Doctor) when the Doctor speculates that Sherwood Forest is inside a miniscope.

Now that is more like it!

This is the Doctor Who I tune in to see every wee.  For the first time this season I liked The Doctor and he seemed to enjoy traveling and be having some fun. He used his wits instead of just waving the sonic screwdriver like a magic wand to fix every thing and he and Clara had some cemestry and were working well together.

They got the Robin Hood tone just right giving it bright colours and a sense of high adventure. This is the tone the Robin Hood show the BBC had a few years ago should have taken instead of the PC teen soap opera it became. This was everything I look for in a Doctor who story.

It had a fun story with good supporting character,an engaging lead actor who you want to go on the adventure with,and good Doctor companion interactions.  I know there are some flaws here and there but to tell you the truth I didn't mind because this story was such a huge improvement over the last two and it went a long way towards winning me over as a 12th Doctor fan.  I hope more episodes this year take this tone because this is what I love about Doctor who.  I would say that it is good enough that I could see it as an episode of the classic series,that is huge upswing. I am now looking forward to the rest of the season instead of just watching it out of a sense of duty because I am a long time fan so good job.

This is Doctor who the way i like it and so I am giving this episode 8.0/10.

This is an episode that I think even non fans would enjoy and if you didn't like the 12th Doctor in the first two stories as i did,this will go a long way to wining you over.  All and all a great effort and I hope this upward trend continues.

Another on going theme seems to be colour (no not the colour of the Doctor's kidney's).

Vasta is referred to as the Green one (and Jenny the not Green one), then we have Journey and Colonel Morgan Blue, then Danny Pink and this week Will Scarlet.

Good night,is this season going to end with them trapped in a giant colouring book?