First, the easy stuff. I continue to enjoy the trio of Vastra, Jenny, and Strax. River Song was used to good effect, although I find her ability to be out and about at this point in her personal timestream to be somewhat dubious.
Richard E. Grant was good as always as the Great Intelligence. Very weird to have a villain recurring so often in just half a season (at least in the revived series). While I haven't minded, I do hope they give it a rest for a while.
And now for the not-so-easy stuff. A decent enough explanation for Clara's multiple lives. Thoroughly enjoyed all the cameos by previous Doctors, and thought it very cool that Time Lady Clara suggested to the First Doctor which TARDIS he should steal.
John Hurt as the Doctor. His intro was vague enough that he could be anything from anytime. Is he an unmentioned regeneration that, instead of the assumed Eighth Doctor, ended the Time War? Is he the future Doctor from the time of the last battle on Trenzalore? Is he some kind of weird aspect of the Doctor, like the Valeyard? All we know is that isn't considered a "Doctor" by his other regenerations. I think I'll wait until after the anniversary special to break out the pitchforks and torches, but I will keep them on standby.
And this leads me to my final thought and general problem with the Steven Moffat era in general: The overarching plot seems to make less and less sense to me each season.
Series 5 had the cracks in time eventually revealed to be caused by an exploding TARDIS. Presumably caused by the Silence, the explosion destroyed all of time and space until the Doctor caused Big Bang II. How and why the Silence did so, though, are not answered that season.
Series 6 introduces the Silence properly and explains why the Silence are trying to kill the Doctor. He knows the answer to a question that must never be answered: Doctor Who? But how they blew up the TARDIS is never answered. Did a Silence sneak onboard and do it, and nobody noticed because of their memory-proofness? Did River's programming kick in and she did it herself without realizing consciously? And is destroying all of time and space really preferable to this being revealed?
Series 7 finally reveals why the Doctor's name can't be revealed at Trenzalore: Because it opens up the Doctor's tomb and allows access to his entire timeline. And what happens when the Great Intelligence accesses that timeline? All of time and space is destroyed! Great job, Silence! You saved all of time and space by... destroying all of time and space!
Sorry, done ranting now.
-------------------- "Kirito? I killed a thing and now it says I have XPs! Is that bad? Am I dying?"
-Asuna, Episode 2, Sword Art Online Abridged
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I'm personally hoping that the Hurt Doctor is a previously unknown incarnation that existed prior to Hartnell, and whatever Hurt did that was so abhorrent is what The Doctor has been running from all these years.
For Hurt to be the Time War Doctor would be a big cop-out imo, and wouldn't be much of a secret...The Doctor has been announcing to everyone within earshot for his past three regenerations that he ended the Time War by destroying both sides, so if that's his big secret he's not done a very good job of keeping it quiet really.
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"...thought it very cool that Time Lady Clara suggested to the First Doctor which TARDIS he should steal."
Except that it completely contradicts what the TARDIS told the Doctor in "The Doctor's Wife". Which, frankly, was a better idea in a better episode.
Something I didn't quite understand : Why was it that River couldn't be there due to her having died? She died in the very first episode she appeared in, and hasn't had trouble showing up alive many times since. She's a time-traveller whose encounters with the Doctor are ordered differently for him than for her. When Clara wondered how she could be dead when she met her, the Doctor should have just said "join the club".
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That was supposed to be "already-dead" River, wasn't it? All other appearences of her were "pre-death".
I do actually prefer the way it was presented in "The Doctor's Wife", but maybe the TARDIS was telling Clara to make the Doctor steal "her". And I admit, I did make very excitable noises when Clara interacted with the first Doctor. Fanwanky as it was, I LOVED the past Doctor appearences. Never have I been so happy about seeing Colin Baker's costume.
(Was it just me, or were there no appearences of the eighth or tenth Doctors in all the flashbacks and timeline runnings?)
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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quote:Originally posted by TSN: Except that it completely contradicts what the TARDIS told the Doctor in "The Doctor's Wife". Which, frankly, was a better idea in a better episode.
You're not the first person I've heard this from, and maybe I've just had a different interpretation of the TARDIS's comments in "The Doctor's Wife" all this time, but I'm not seeing how Clara's influence contradicts them. I've always seen the TARDIS's statements as "I wanted to go joyriding around time and space but I needed a like-minded pilot, so when one showed up, I determined never to let him go" and not that it lured the Doctor onto it with some sort of influence outside its own hull.
Although, like Liam said, the dying (but not dead) TARDIS may have been influencing its own history via the fragmented Clara.
quote:Originally posted by TSN: Something I didn't quite understand : Why was it that River couldn't be there due to her having died? She died in the very first episode she appeared in, and hasn't had trouble showing up alive many times since. She's a time-traveller whose encounters with the Doctor are ordered differently for him than for her. When Clara wondered how she could be dead when she met her, the Doctor should have just said "join the club".
What Liam said. It's not the fact that River showed up, it's the fact that they went out of their way to mention she was post-library River and should only exist as a program in a supercomputer.
EDIT: I really couldn't tell through all the haze, but from what I understand, the Hurt Doctor was wearing the Ninth Doctor's jacket over the Eighth Doctor's clothes. Maybe a clue, maybe a red herring.
Also, another thought. If indeed Hurt Doctor is a past regeneration of the Doctor, the Eleventh Doctor may be his last incarnation, depending on whether or not the events of "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End" count as the use of a regeneration. (Although, there was that one line from Sarah Jane Adventures that indicates he might not have such a limitation anymore...)
-------------------- "Kirito? I killed a thing and now it says I have XPs! Is that bad? Am I dying?"
-Asuna, Episode 2, Sword Art Online Abridged
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This article shows John Hurt in costume. He is apparently the actual Ninth Doctor; Eccleston is the Tenth, Tennant is the Eleventh, and Smith is actually the twelfth.
-------------------- I haul cardboard and cardboard accessories
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The Eighth Doctor has had a visual revamp for the latest audio plays. It's not "TV-canon", but it does have to be approved by the Doctor Who office. Food for thought.
quote:Originally posted by Krenim: Also, another thought. If indeed Hurt Doctor is a past regeneration of the Doctor, the Eleventh Doctor may be his last incarnation, depending on whether or not the events of "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End" count as the use of a regeneration. (Although, there was that one line from Sarah Jane Adventures that indicates he might not have such a limitation anymore...)
I was always pretty certain they were just going to never mention that again. There's plenty of ways you can argue around the 12 regenerations issue, and most new fans wouldn't even know it existed anyway.
I'm going for the argument (which a few others are also saying) that Hurt is going to be the 9th incarnation of the character we call "The Doctor", but not the "9th Doctor" because he doesn't deserve the name for some reason, possibly his actions in the Time War.
Or, to put it another way, there was a person called Theta who looked like William Hartnell, then Patrick Troughton etc. After Paul McGann, he then turned into John Hurt. Prior to this all incarnations of Thete called themselves "The Doctor" but this one didn't. Eventually he regenerated into Christopher Eccleston, who did start calling himself "The Doctor". So Eccleston is the 9th Doctor but the 10th Theta.
That's my guess, anyway. It is a shame that Eccleston didn't agree to do the 50th anniversary special.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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I'm sure there are ways to reconcile the episode with "The Doctor's Wife" if you try, but I still think that what actually happened is they ignored it just because they had the idea to show the First Doctor and Susan stealing the TARDIS (which, admittedly, was pretty great otherwise).
And, Liam, I also remember thinking after watching the episode that I didn't remember seeing Eight or Ten show up. I suppose they may have skipped Eight because even a lot of people who know the old show might not have recognized him (though, that's probably true of most of today's viewers and most of the old Doctors, so...). Why they would have skipped Ten, though, I don't know. Possibly something to do with the fact that he will be in the anniversary special? Which, if that true, might say something about the lack of Eight and the identity of John Hurt's Doctor? Who knows.
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The thing is, you could so easily use Paul McGann in a current episode. He's not aged that much (certainly not compared to Colin Baker, say), and as we never saw him regenerate you wouldn't even need to explain why he looked older than in the TV movie.
In fact, the only reason not to use him is because it would reference the TV movie.
(Thinking about it, I wonder if that's why they didn't show him. Maybe there are right's issues with the TV movie. Although they've shown clips before, so I dunno...)
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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