Philotic Web

Dr. Who is basically comprised of the "Old Series" which contains the first seven Doctors. Significant parts of this series are completely lost due to fires and the BBC and because no one in the sixties figured on there ever being a storage medium big enough and cheap enough for consumers to want to buy whole series for their home viewing. Don't bother hunting for these unless you watch the 2005 series first and absolutely must have more.

Then there was the "Made for FOX" movie starring the Eighth Doctor, which involved a ton of time paradoxes and parallel universes just in case it went over horribly with the fanbase so it could be comfortably ignored by any future attempts to revive the show. It went over well enough.

Then the "New Series" picked up in 2005 and follows the 9th and 10th Doctors. These two Doctors make a lot of references to their continued adventures together, so it's best to watch from the start of the 2005 series rather than any place else.

Then there's the "New New Series" starring the 11th which is airing now, and can comfortably be watched without seeing any other Doctor Who, though it makes a few in-jokes all the way back to the Old Series. If you absolutely can't stand the 9th or 10th Doctors, try a few episodes of this series before completely abandoning the show.

In short: Try the 2005 Series first. If you don't like the 9th Doctor (I didn't), but like the show concept try the 2006 or 2010 series. If you can't get enough after that, go back to the old series.

Thanks for the advice for ... uh... this hypothetical situation

NASA discovers crack in the universe

Eeeek!

let's consider he only saw a few episodes of the 4th doctor, many years ago.

Er, well, did he like it? I've only seen a smattering of serials, but I preferred what I saw of the "old" dr who to the dr who "2005". This JB sounds in the past like he may have similar tastes as me, but, you know, his mileage may vary.

Yeah, i am working under the assumption he liked it. Of course, he would have been a hypothetical child, by then >.>
He's a peculiar, hypothetical guy.

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/06/in-the ... r-a-tardis

Franky, I'd pay 10 times the expected price to have that... if I had the money, anyway.

Finale tonight!!

*so excited*

Great, now I want to go to Space Florida.

Wow.

Definitely the best series ending of the new lot so far, given that it managed to be resolved in a way that didn't rely on some plot twist that was totally unheralded. I liked how the story was all intertwined with itself and the others.

Also, first time that both the companions and the Doctor have remained the same.

Is Rory still plastic? Presumably not, given he never met the Doctor and therefore never died, but then if he is human does he remember the whole Pandorica stuff given that it happened after he died?

Can't wait for next year.

I kind of loved it. And that is about all I can process so far.


I've been trying to recruit one of my close friends to watch it and now want to re-watch it with him, but I am not sure I am going to be able to re-theorize about River/etc with the ending's forebodings. Though, we've done it before.

Is Rory still plastic? Presumably not, given he never met the Doctor and therefore never died, but then if he is human does he remember the whole Pandorica stuff given that it happened after he died?

If you listen in close during the wedding, when Amy's approaching the TARDIS and Rory's going over the stuff he's surprised to be remembering, he mentions that he's still plastic.

Oh my god, that was SOOO good. I loved the entire finale. It was just so entertaining throughout. After Rory said "Remember that old wedding saying?" -- I immediately went "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue", and got chills.

Wow. That was great and fun. I was expecting it to get a bit darker, since it's Stephen Moffat, but it was good. I love the back and forthness of time and how that gets played with.

I think I'm going to have to watch it again to absorb it fully.

Is Rory still plastic? Presumably not, given he never met the Doctor and therefore never died, but then if he is human does he remember the whole Pandorica stuff given that it happened after he died?

If you listen in close during the wedding, when Amy's approaching the TARDIS and Rory's going over the stuff he's surprised to be remembering, he mentions that he's still plastic.

Nope. He says "I WAS plastic." (We re-listened, twice)

Loved it. Just loved it.

I was not terribly fond of Rory in the first episode - he just seemed rather bland and extra-ish to me. But he's grown on me, and I love him. When you think about those 2000 years, all the disasters he knew about and couldn't avert, all the poor hygiene and bad medicine (remember, he's a nurse!)... it's a wonder the poor man stayed sane. What a charmer!

Also - Eleven as the stripper at Rory's stag night!!!

I'm very impressed with Stephen Moffatt for two things especially - the way he drew the entire season into the final plot, and the way he USED time travel. So often the TARDIS has seemed like little more than a McGuffin. It was all so lovely.

I can't wait for Christmas already!

I'm very impressed with Stephen Moffatt for two things especially - the way he drew the entire season into the final plot, and the way he USED time travel. So often the TARDIS has seemed like little more than a McGuffin. It was all so lovely.

Yeah, I've got a whole thing half-written about how Moffat's Who, even as far back as 'The Curse of The Fatal Death', is defined by use of time as part of the story rather than just a way of getting between stories. As far as I can see he was the only writer really doing that with under Davies, but it's coming out from everyone now he's in charge.

After Rory said "Remember that old wedding saying?" -- I immediately went "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue", and got chills.

I totally did the same thing

Also - Eleven as the stripper at Rory's stag night!!!

Hee... This made me giggle.

I really liked how this season had an all around happy ending. I mean, has there been one of the new set that was not at least bitter-sweet?

I like how much more serialized this season is compared to past seasons. Also that the story arc wasn't entirely wrapped up in the finale.

Anyone else wonder if Amy and the Doctor were up to some interesting hijinks when the Van Gogh was stolen earlier today?

If so, Egypt is kinda ticked off at them.

No wonder we were getting weird looks looking at the padlocks of Degas paintings earlier today and when I was staring intently at a couple Van Gogh's.

I think the Van Gogh episode is going to be my intro episode to one of my friends if he won't start with Eleventh Hour. He asked me what I've been watching recently and I completely forgot to remind him that he owes me starting Who.

The Van Gogh episode totally made me cry.

Eh, if you wanted a bottle episode from this season to show a friend, I think Vampires of Venice would be a better one, even if it spoils the Doctor and Amy pseudo-tryst from the get-go. For one thing it has Rory in it, and the Doctor runs the gamut of his roles in the plot - from the hilariously out-of-step crashing of Rory's stag party to the question of the Doctor's habitual use of genocide to solve his problems. Vincent and the Doctor has much less in common with the rest of the series.

Seems like a reasonable place to post this. I don't think I could get used to Tennant's american accent.

That's so weird. I keep hearing little hints of his other accents and expecting him to go veering off, but he doesn't and so the whole thing end up feeling jumbled. It's rather unsettling.

Yeah, he doesn't do such a good American accent. He did a far better RP one, but that could be because my ear isn't tuned to the nuances of UK accents.

http://io9.com/5622700/what-is-that-pol ... ing-at-mit

That's awesome.

Hey, gang. As usual, I waited until the entire season was definitely done for before shotgunning it, one a night.

Wooooooo.

I loved the pilot, and then the finale, and the rest was so-so. There's something about Moffat that I really like only part of the time. Let's see... Rory and Amy were awesome, I'm glad they'll be back. The Angels arc was actually really disappointing to me, as I felt it introduced so many complications that they actually lost their scary quotient. Before they were so simple, and that's what was scary! In my opinion. Van Go*hack* episode was great, as everyone said, but Moffat seems to disregard information paradoxes in a way that makes my stomach twist.

Anyway, jolly good show, glad to finally be able to open this thread again.

I didn't see much discussion about River Song! Does anyone else find her appearances completely aggravating? She so... so... Canon Sue! And smug about it!

I think the Angels arc might have been slightly ruined by shotgunning it. It was really the suspense and cliffhangers that made it fun to watch. I personally don't find the Angels that scary just because of the assumed immortality of the characters I care about. They were good the first time because any of those throwaway characters could have been offed.

River's just about my favorite character, so I might be biased, but I see her as almost a commentary on the companions in general. Frankly, she's sort of the Anti-Rose. Whereas Rose, and even Martha to a degree love the Doctor for the same reasons we love him - for his mad genius bravado and courage, River's reasons for loving the Doctor are much less clear to us, and yet she seems even more devoted to him. The other companions are willing to risk their lives to protect the Earth or save the day, but River actually dies for no reason other than to protect the Doctor. She's the first companion that's companioned to the the Doctor and not his adventures, if that makes any sense.

Now, yes, doing that requires her to be elevated in other ways that are very Canon Sue-ish. I mean, being able to fly the TARDIS better than the Doctor? Really? But if she wasn't capable of honestly stepping up to the Doctor and saying "I've got just as much of a handle on things as you do, and I love you too much to let you do this," there'd be no point to the character.

Part of what bugs me so much about River Song is that if it was pulled off better, with any other variation on the character, I would probably love it. The separated by time in space, time lines going in a sort of opposing directions, but instead, I can't stand her. However, her finale appearance made me rage less than the previous ones.

My main problem with Moffat, despite loving season 5 for the most part/Sherlock/Jekyll, is he doesn't really do well spread out over a full season. Also, he loves certain plots/themes and seems to be recycling them from the episodes he wrote under RTD. I started a list at one point but it has been a while since I watched most of RTD Who.

River's just about my favorite character, so I might be biased, but I see her as almost a commentary on the companions in general. Frankly, she's sort of the Anti-Rose. Whereas Rose, and even Martha to a degree love the Doctor for the same reasons we love him - for his mad genius bravado and courage, River's reasons for loving the Doctor are much less clear to us, and yet she seems even more devoted to him. The other companions are willing to risk their lives to protect the Earth or save the day, but River actually dies for no reason other than to protect the Doctor. She's the first companion that's companioned to the the Doctor and not his adventures, if that makes any sense.

This interpretation makes complete sense, actually. Like xers, though, I think I would probably have loved her if the execution was at all different. Maybe it's the actress. Just the way she says "spoilers" makes me want to punch the screen.

My main problem with Moffat, despite loving season 5 for the most part/Sherlock/Jekyll, is he doesn't really do well spread out over a full season. Also, he loves certain plots/themes and seems to be recycling them from the episodes he wrote under RTD. I started a list at one point but it has been a while since I watched most of RTD Who.

I like that. RTD did it all the time, but it was much less organic. Actually, Who in general has done that - Daleks and Cybermen, anyone? (God how I hate the cybermen!) Don't forget, also, that Moffat didn't write the whole series, just some of the episodes.

Yeah, the Daleks have been seriously diluted by the RTD era. I mean, they were jokingly the most threatening pepper shakers on Earth at the start, but now when they show up they're about as intimidating as, well, pepper shakers. The whole irrational omnicidal enemy made sense following WWII when we didn't have a decent handle on the psychology behind the Nazi death machine, but now that we do, the idea that every single Dalek is hell bent on wiping out all other life just seems silly. They tried to chip away at that with Dalek Caan and Dalek Sec looking at the Daleks from a new perspective and seeing how foolish they were being, and in the end kind of folded back in on themselves.

Same goes for the Cybermen, but they didn't even bother trying to update the Cybermen mentality.

Rewatching Series 5 because these are the last few days I expect to have much free time before Christmas. First time I've watched it since it aired, and I'll post short musings on the episodes as I watch them. They will be from the perspective of having seen all of them, so there will be unmarked spoilers even for later episodes. Also note that the ratings are relative to the season. Every episode would be 4s or 5s if I rated absolutely.

The Eleventh Hour - 5/5

Bit of melancholy here. I don't love this as much as I did the first time through, but a few bits are even better. Amy seems a bit deeper since we know what happened to her family. I assumed they had just died off in an accident or something, and she had some abandonment issues because of that, but knowing the nature of the crack changes that. She doesn't remember her parents at all, and this makes her relationship with the Doctor different - her "Why did you say five minutes?!" line is probably the best line in the episode. She's not annoyed with him for abandoning her - she's annoyed simply because he's late, simply for making her wait 12 years. She never stopped believing he was real, the scene later where she pins his tie into a car and demands an explanation is just her fear of a letdown kicking in - it's everything she wants, but she's afraid to reach out and grab it because it would just hurt too much if it wasn't real. That's waaay more empathetic, at least for me, than my original interpretation that she was just the sad little girl in the village who clings to a happy memory from childhood - and it brings a new strength to Amy's character for me.

The Beast Below - 3/5

This was one of my least favorite episodes the first time through, I wasn't looking forward to watching it again, but I figured I'd better and I'm glad I did. I feel a bit thick for not paying enough attention the first time through. It's Hindsight Bias in full swing, but I feel like I really should have picked up on the significance of the still water glasses the first time, they're certainly shown frequently enough before the big reveal at the end. But then, the big reveal bothers me now. The Doctor or the TARDIS didn't pick up on the gigantic space whale underneath Starship UK when they were flying around it? And the Space Whale's movement produces no discernible vibrations? It feels a bit like being led through a maze with someone constantly blocking all the right turns and then acting like the maze is a masterwork when you get lost.

There's some great lines in there for second time viewers, too. Amy wonders what she did/will do at her wedding , and lots of UK and other pop-culture jokes, plus Star Wars humor.

Where the last episode rearranged my perception of Amy, this one shook up my perception of the Doctor, at least the 11th, specifically. At first I saw him as a direct continuation, the way 10th was to 9th, sort of a different stage of the grief process in him getting over the Time War - I thought that his insistence that Amy not get a say what he does and does not know about the situation was due to fear of his inability to save the day without all the information, but I was a bit wrong. This Doctor's ... different to 10 and 9. They were all wrapped up in their own flaws and grief. They asked the question, "What measure is a Time Lord?" in light of the Time War, and 11 simply answers the question, "Me." He even has a line in here about it, but it took seeing 11 in action throughout the season for me to realize that 9 and 10's fears and insecurities are gone.

There are other weird quirks to this episode - Amy's framing voice-over stands out, and makes the episode seem kinda fairy tale. I didn't really notice the theme last time I went through, but I'll pay attention to fairy tale motifs through the rest.

Victory to the Daleks - 2/5

Meh. This would have been a bottle episode except for a few things. When the Dream Lord shows up later in the season, I initially pegged him as the Master for a bit, but someone pointed out to me that if the Master shows up in and out, every season his presence begins to cheapen, and I'm starting to feel that way about the Daleks. Yes, I know they're the Doctor's staple enemy, but the most menacing pepper shakers in the universe are starting to just feel like regular old pepper shakers - they're a bit irritating when they get in where they're not supposed to, but in moderation they add some flavor.

It's weird to say about 60s-style robotic characters, but the Daleks are actually well acted in this episode. The way the Ironside-Dalek reacts to the Doctor's kick and the presentation of the new Dalek Paradigm were both accompanied by head movement that would have been completely natural for a human, but don't make a lot of sense with a Dalek frame. This leads me to think they missed an opportunity with the new Daleks. Instead of just making them bigger and Power-Ranger-esque color coordinated, you could have given at least those five more emotive frames, and kept the traditional appearance for the later rank and file. Alan Rickman's whole career has been built on the fact that villans are more fun to watch in their emotional throes, but the Daleks are crippled in this by the need to stick to appearances limited by 60s-era special effects capabilities. It's a shame.

Other than that, the episode serves up our first hint that the crack rips things out of continuity since Amy doesn't remember the Daleks, and there's some mild flirting to hint at what culminates in Amy's attempted seduction at the end of the Angels arc. Funny that the Doctor's lack of understanding of the human condition nearly blows up the planet. 9 or 10 probably would have admitted that they could stand to learn a thing or two from humans, but good luck getting that from 11.

Not a bad episode really, but being an American, the London Blitz doesn't draw a ton of empathy from me. I understand it, but the same way I understand other historical pieces of struggle. If this had been the Revolution, or the Civil War, maybe I'd have enjoyed it more, but probably not.

Speaking of, I do with Doctor Who would go to the Revolution. I'd love to see the UK's take on the matter, but perhaps the fact that I've seen very little British TV on the subject says all that needs to be said.

River's back in the next episode!