DOCTOR WHO Spoiler Thread

[filkertom]

This season's just getting weirder and weirder....

Comments

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

This weeks ep was indeed weird. For the first time in a long time I didn't actually enjoy watching. It being a two parter took me by surprise. Aren't two part episodes usually important ones? This one just seems, well, really odd.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Meh on the writing. The story was, to put it kindly, predictable.

One thought: could the 1100-year-old Doctor from the season opener have been plastic? Or possibly the astronaut, instead. Either would make sense, depending on how it's presented (though I lean toward the victim, rather than the shooter).

On a slightly OT tangent, I've been rewatching the series starting with Patrick Troughton (and skipping Jon Pertwee, until I can acquire those eps), and am now up to the second season of Peter Davison. MAN, I hate Davison worse now that I've had some time between watchings. He's whiny, and obnoxious (as were the prior Doctors) without any endearing humor or personality.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

That's a lot of my growing problem with Matt Smith, actually. I don't deny he's pulling off a valid interp of The Doctor; it's that, more and more, I find I don't like this Doctor. His humor is growing less endearing and more annoying. Smith's doing fine, but he's doing what's written, and the more we see of the Eleventh Doctor, the less he's doing for me.

On the other hand, I adore Amy and Rory, as well as AmyAndRory. Excellent companions.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

I've said before and agree with you that Matt Smith has half of the Doctor down: the humor so necessary to the character. I just don't (usually) believe that his manipulations, the behind-the-scenes machinations of the sort pulled off by previous incarnations (especially Two, Four, Seven, Nine, and Ten), are for real. He doesn't have the gravitas, and for all his clowning, the Doctor (especially the modern one, the lone surviving Time Lord and all that) has to have that wide streak of seriousness.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Absotively on the gravitas. The question I ask myself is: Could this Doctor pull the trigger on the Family of Blood (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Nature_%28Doctor_Who_episode%29), the way the Tenth did? I don't think Eleven would have any idea of how to dispose of or neutralize them. Something Would Come Up and take the hard decision out of his hands. And that's the writing.

[wyldemusick.livejournal.com]

I've been saying that about Matt Smith's insufficiency of gravitas since the day he was hired, and it really shows in this episode -- The Doctor and Amy might as well have not been there; Rory was a bit more present, but not by much. My supply of giveashit for the show is the lowest it's been in a while, despite my liking River Song quite a bit.

[rrcgoose.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was waiting for the Doctor to take a bit more control of the situation instead of just letting things be. I think that when things went to shit when the originals and the gangers were trying to make peace, Doctor 10 would definitely done a better job at defusing the situation.

It seemed to me that Rory was actually being a little bit more ballsy than the Doctor, and that's saying something...

Steve-

[jenrose]

This has always been my beef about Matt Smith. He plays the Doctor as a doddering senile fool most of the time... with very little actual WISDOM. Tennant's doctor, at the heart, was WISE. You actually believed he was one of the most intelligent beings to ever occupy space-time. Smith is too much the fool.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

I find that I'm starting to agree--I don't like the writing. The characterization (I actually am a bit frustrated at Amy and Rory as well as at the Doctor), the metaplotting (remember when "Bad Wolf" was a small and easy to miss recurrence, instead of this equivalent, which is basically like zooming in on "Bad Wolf" once per episode?), even the lighting (I'm sick of darkness, both as a lack of light source in episodes and more generally as a theme).

[inamac.livejournal.com]

Speculation is that the 'dead' Doctor is one of the 'ganger' constructs.

Further speculation is that Amy is also a construct (hence the pregnant/not pregnant scans).

Even further speculation (we are into the realms of tripplethink here) is that Amy is the astronaut who shoots the Doctor.

Where this leave River Song is anyones guess.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be surprised by any of that. Of course additional speculation is that the young girl who regenerates is the Doctor, and further, that she might also be the Doctor's daughter (maybe the one who headed for space, and maybe by Amy Pond). The only I am hoping for is that this season is NOT all Amy's hallucination/fantasy/dream (possibly as manipulated by the mystery woman who tells her she's doing fine). There's little as dissatisfying as "and then she woke up" as an explanation.

[inamac.livejournal.com]

It was all so much simpler in 1963...

[wiredwizard.livejournal.com]

I just want to know what's w/ the woman peeking through the window that vanishes whenever Amy notices her...

[fmh.livejournal.com]

I briefly thought about the construct Doctor being the one from 200 years hence that gets killed on the beach. Mostly I was wondering 'can it regenerate?'. S'pose they'll have to return to the Tardis graveyard for parts again...can't believe a second Doctor would be content with anything less then his own.

[rrcgoose.livejournal.com]

Like others, I wasn't really entertained by this weeks episode. I found myself getting lost with the who's who. It was also fairly predictable, too much "'Blade Runner' with Voledemort look-alikes." We'll see where they take it next week.

Speculation (With spoilers):

What if all of the workers (Not including the standard trio) are constructs and just don't know it yet?

I'm not buying speculation that the Doctor on the beach was a construct. It just seems like too easy of a way out. I'm standing by with it was the real Doctor, and that our companions will find some way to resolve the issue. (Or, they're writing themselves into a reboot...)

Another appearance of the Eyepatch Lady. They're not even trying to hide it, and actually pointing you to it in the trailers. To me, it looks like a nurse checking in on a patient. I speculate that it will have something to do with Amy's pregnancy.

Steve-

[archiver-tim.livejournal.com]

I am also not into this week's episode.
Maybe I was supposed to see that the gangers only are to exist for a short time, when the originals are in the harness and need them for a specific task. That would give more of a danger to the long-term ones.

[nimitzbrood.livejournal.com]

Not sure where I sit on this one.

Yeah the episode was predictable. I mean hell the Doctor put his hand in the goo meant to _make_ _people_ and you think we're not going to get a Doctorganger? And for the love of the time vortex please stop shooting in dimly lit corridors! Grrrr!

It's a little early to speculate on the plastic Doctor being the one to die on the beach but it would be a convenient way of getting out of the problem. Frankly though I'd feel cheated if they did that.

Which brings me to...the eyepatch lady, pregnant/not-pregnant Amy, and the girl regenerating in the alley.

I'm not sure what the eyepatch lady is doing but she's obviously monitoring Amy. Badly. I mean she's being noticed even if it's on an immediately forgotten level. And here's a thought - she could be monitoring Amy's actions throughout the timestream to prevent a future event. I'd like that one actually because the whole "dream" thing is way overdone.

The pregnancy and the girl in the alley. *sigh* I still believe that the girl is River Song. I can't explain why I think that as it's just a gut feel but it feels right to me. And once again River in the suit on the beach makes a ton of sense in the grand scheme of things.

Oh and WTF with the previous episode? Ten made a big deal about closing up all the cracks between universes, stating that the fabric is fragile, and then Eleven just jumps outside the existing one? Hellooooo?

[wyldemusick.livejournal.com]

Parallel universes with Ten, a bubble universe outside our own with 11.

[nimitzbrood.livejournal.com]

I get the idea but either is still breaking our universal wall which Ten said was fragile.

Maybe the smaller pocket universe requires less energy to break into thus making it safer. Or maybe it's a slip into the rift channel then into the pocket universe or something.

Still the nit annoys me a little. ;-)

[capt-video.livejournal.com]

Re: Amy's not/pregnancy and the little girl Time Lady*; I'm going with an "Area 51" explanation... the Silence have implanted Amy with The Doctor's DNA (or whatever). Why the fluctuating reading from the TARDIS, I don't know...

*a friend of mine started calling her this and it stuck.

[hms42]

Definately getting weirder... The US gets a 2 week gap, while the UK gets the new episode next week.

They are also still slightly cutting the episodes here in the US from what airs in the UK.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Which is why many of us still watch the UK versions, one way or another. (Even those who have to resort to *shudder* iTunes.)

[jenrose]

It felt very old-school, actually. Pacing, monsters, everything, I could totally see Tom Baker doing that ep.

But the characterizations were off for *this* doctor, and *these* companions.

Eyepatch Lady

[zeekar.livejournal.com]

...anyone else getting a very "Life on Mars" vibe from this subplot?

Re: Eyepatch Lady

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, we just finished watching the UK version of Life on Mars (third time for me), and swore up and down that one guy was Arthur Darvill. Of course, IMDB showed that it wasn't -- but that the actor had in fact played in the Christmas Carol ep of DW. (Which makes four noticeable crossovers, counting the one this week, that we know of).

[emiofbrie.livejournal.com]

What *should* happen when the plot resumes:

The Doctor makes damn sure everyone trusts the Doctorganger, because if the ganger has all the memories and knowledge and philosophy of the Doctor, then he shouldn't be pulling the "I'm the real one" competition bullshit the other gangers are, and in fact would be helping the true cause: making sure EVERYONE (including the remaining gangers) survives.

...after all, he's The Doctor. :)