Shocked that nobody's started this thread yet. Anyway...
Very awesome episode. Matt Smith's off to a very strong start as the Eleventh Doctor.
My only confusion is over when the various parts of this episode are supposed to take place. As far as I remember, the Doctor was in 2004 or 2005 when he regenerated. Considering how the episode takes place over the span of fourteen years, either Amy is from the future or the TARDIS travelled backwards in time before it crashed in young Amy's backyard.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I honestly wasn't really taken with it. The new Doctor is OK I suppose, no major complaints, but the episode has this weird feeling that I can only compare to a person sprinting on the spot. It was all going very fast but not going very far for all the effort and I'm afraid it started to get more than a little tedious.
Maybe it's an intentional choice for the traditionally manic post-regeneration Doctor but either way, I can only hope things calm down a bit because all the crazed rushing around but not actually doing very much feels more than a little forced and tiresome.
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
I have to agree with Rev there, it did feel a bit like they said "OK, act like you're a crazy" all the way through to Smith. It was OK, but it was no 'Rose'.
Off the top of my head - the logo, the theme (not sure I like it TBH), the theme animation of the time vortex, the (now green) sonic screwdriver, the TARDIS, inside and out, have all been changed. I was watching it thinking "Are they trying to say in as unsubtle a way as they can that Russel T Davis is not in charge anymore?"
It was OK, and of course I'll watch next weeks. I am in the minority that got a bit fed up with David Tennant, not totaly because of David Tennant but because of the production and the peril going up to 11 every week and then upto about 63 for the season end, it all got a bit childish. I'm hoping for good thngs!
Posted by Axeman 3D (Member # 1050) on :
I could watch the assistant running around in that cop uniform all day. Not sure about Mr Smith though, we'll have to see. They like tem to be a bit mental immediately after a regeneration, so we'll see if they give him his own personality in the next couple of episodes.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
She didn't run so much as toddle. Poor girl seamed to have some difficulty with that short skirt.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
I love the new opening crawl, though I do sort of prefer the old theme. The bit where Amy's running to pack when I *knew* the Doctor wouldn't be back in 5 minutes was rather gutwrenching...
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Mark has a four month-old at home. Mark was delayed with his notes. Sue Mark!
But I thoroughly enjoyed this premiere episode, and eagerly look forward to more. Any doubts I had to Matt Smith's ability to portray the Doctor hav been erased, and as long as the writing supports him, I'm convinced he'll swifty shed the "Tennant lite" criticisms and make the role his own, and his alone. The plot was simplistic, but like "Rose" and "The Christmas Invasion" it pretty much had to be, thus allowing a focus on (re-)establishing characters and relationships.
- Almost traditionally, the Doctor spends the first story following a regeneration dazed, confused, or otherwise in need of recuperation. Here, he's shown not being given a break at all, and following only the shortest of downtimes to satisfy a food craving, he's right back at it. He's only recovered so quickly after regenerating into his second and sixth incarnations previously.
- It's odd that the ENTIRE interior of the TARDIS is put on its side when the outside box is flipped over. This has been shown on occasion in the history of the show, most notably in "Time Flight" where the Fifth Doctor had to lower himself into the console room when the TARDIS had been loaded sideways into a Concorde. He had to manually reset the orientation of the TARDIS first to get everything back upright.
- The TARDIS Has a pool again! It lost the original pool in "Castrovalva" when it was jettisoned along with a quarter of the internal superstructure. Since the whole thing has had multiple makeovers since then, at some point the Doctor or the TARDIS figured having a pool again made sense. Still, it seems to have been upturned along with everything else and had since drained into the library.
- The Doctor is "still cooking" through most of the episode, even exhaling some leftover regeneration energy like his predecessor did. One thing he DIDN'T do this time is lop off his hand to have a spare around should he need it to heal and NOT regenerate. I suppose it's not really something Time Lords would do if given the choice, but it's a pretty convenient thing to have around.
- FISH CUSTARD!
- Anyone else think that the young Amelia would have made a great companion too? And the kicker is that her actress is the actual cousin of the adult Amy's actress, Karen Gillan. I'm sure we're not done seeing the younger edition - we know that the TARDIS popped up while she was waiting, but we don't know what the Doctor did while he was there, yet...
- The sonic screwdriver seemed a bit out of whack BEFORE Prizoner Zero took a bite out of it. I know they really wanted to update the look of the show, but did they have to blow up the old one like that?
- This Doctor has similar wierd skills as his predecessors. He can tell the age of something by taste, for example, and has a neat way of recalling things he's seen even if they're not facing him.
- Speaking of which, it's surely going to be addressed at some point that Rory has more to him than average looks and a cowardly attitude. While no date is really specified, lots of people think that most of the episode happens in 2008 or thereabouts. And yet, the intentional close up of Rory's hospital badge shows that it was issued in 1990, BEFORE cameraphones, Twitter, porn-laden laptops and the like. Clumsy error, or clever hook for a future story? He certianly hasn't been working there for close to two decades, if he was kids with Amy at some point.
- Timeline: The Doctor was in 2005 when he took off to regenerate, though whether or not he was travelling through time as he was orbitting Earth isn't clear. When the TARDIS almost collided with Big Ben at the top of the episode, the Millenium Dome was seen in the background, making that part of the episode somewhere after 2000. I like to think that the title sequence was meant to be part of this particular episode and that the Doctor thus traveled BACK in time to meet young Amelia. If the END of the episode was in 2010 and thus coincident with the current year, then most of the episode happened in 2008 and the past segement was in 1996. I suppose we'll figure it out eventually from clues in a future episode.
- Regardless of the year, if all the experts are together thinking of some wierd wibbly wobbly solar phenomena, why doesn't the Doctor just identify himself? His previous incarnation was known by almost anyone of influence by his time's end!
- In the first season, barely anyone knew of the Doctor's identity as a Time Lord. Prisoner Zero had a pretty good clue of him and his TARDIS. And of course, for the series-long secret of silence falling and something called the Pandorica. Convenient, but I hope not nearly as abstractly misleading as his previous mysteries of Bad Wolf, knocking four times. etc...
- This is the third time the Doctor has assembled his initial outfit from clothes he finds in a hospital - the Third and Eighth Doctors did it too. This outfit is arguably the most mismatched one since his sixth incarnation, with an Indiana Jones tweed jacket, stried shirt and bow tie clashing with rolled up pants and boots. It's grown on me since we saw it in June of '09 though. Stranger would have been the Jack Sparrow outfit which was originally proposed, and for which pictures will eventually surface, I'm sure...
- Absolutely loved the montage sequence of the Atraxi showing various alien menaces over the years, and how they were all stopped by the Doctor in his various incarnations, ending with Eleven walking through his predecessor's face and literally introducing himself as the latest model.
- Sequence of bad guys shown in eyball vision: new series cybermen (though it's from the episodes which happened in the alternate-reality); the Daleks from their second-season finale; the Racnoss queen; an unidentified eye stalk from the original series(?); the Ood; the Sycorax; the original series versions of the Sontarans AND the Sea Devils; the Chronovores from "Father's Day"; the Hath from "The Doctor's Daughter", and the Vashta Narada from the fourth season two-parter. Oddly, half of these guys were never ON Earth or menaced it directly.
- The TARDIS announces it's done remodelling itself by making its key glowey and with a VWORPey sound effect. The Doctor rushes back to a brand new police box (complete with the St. John's ambulance symbol which was on the very first TARDIS prop in 1963), which doesn't even squeak when the doors open.
- Ah, the interior! So my previous thoughts were incorrect, and it IS a full 360-degree set. However, the "missing" wall piece is inexplicably a rather nonescript grey wall, which looks VERY out of place compared to the reddy-orangey alien walls we otherwise see. It's almost as though the production designers ran out of money for that wall and just threw something together, thinking we wouldn't see it often. And yet it's there, with its own lights and simple darkened doorway that one of the stairways leads down to. Worse still, both the Doctor and Amy spend an awful long time staring up in wonder at this NONDESCRIPT GREY WALL. I love the set, but this one part just doesn't fit in any way!
- The new time rotor is blown glass, and moves much like the original series rotor. However, this has the unforutnate side effect of looking like a thrusting butt plug sex toy. Not that I know what that's like.
- The new monitor is cracked, JUST LIKE THE CRACK IN AMY'S WALL. Hum.
Mark
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Well Prisoner Zero did mention something about the cracks (plural) in space time and was amused that the Doctor didn't know who did it. This means either the Doctor did it unknowingly, will have going to have done it or some big bad did it.
So cracks and descending darkness are going to be things to watch out for, though I rather hope it's not going to end in another "end of the world/universe/reality/space-time continuum" event. To much of that gets repetitive.
Posted by Axeman 3D (Member # 1050) on :
The Supreme Being left cracks and holes all over the place during the creation, it was in Time Bandits so it must be true.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Cracks made me think of the Rift in Cardiff. I'm sure they are different. Torchwood is coming back this year isn't it??
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Don't think so. I think I read somewhere they're making a US based spin-off or reboot instead...because that always works out great.
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
The rather final sounding ending of the miniseries plus the fact Jack was in the 1oth Doctors last outing kind of gave me the impression that Torchwood may be dead.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Hmm I did a quick search and there are reports that Torchwood will be back for a fourth season of 13 episodes. I did also see that about a US version. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Oh and they wanted to make Captain Jack straight.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
'Course they do. It's America.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
I liked the direction of photography and editing. The frequent closeups and pans gives the show a clean, expensive-looking and detailed focus. The editing felt organic, where at times the 9th/10th doctor camerawork and editing had very stilted and predictable reaction shots, and too often in zoomed out full-frame.
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
A bit late to the party again, but I just watched this episode.
I know that the season is all done now so y'all know what the cracks are from, but humour me. Something to do with the almost-return of the Time Lords?
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Well it's not quite over yet, still one more to go this evening so not all the details have been made clear yet, but I doubt it.