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RJCarrot wrote:

Either way, we have a Scottish doctor... so there's that.

Which means he can complain about things!! Although, it would be nice to have a tiny throwback comment to Doc 9, in the whole "are you from the north?" "yeah, but then, lots of planets have a north" since Scotland is a wee bit north of where 9s accent was from

Changing subject slightly to thinking about Danny Pink joining the TARDIS.

He might bring an interesting aspect to the show in that, he could be a mirror of The Doctor in a lot of ways.

We know that he's a former soldier, who suffers from some form of PTSD as a result of doing 'some thing' that, not only does he feel exceedingly guilty about himself, but 'some thing' that he expects others to judge him very harshly about.

The Doctor is often described as 'The man who started running and never stopped' being confronted with someone whol had similar experiences to him but DID choose to stop 'running' might make some very compelling tv.

 Compel wrote:
Changing subject slightly to thinking about Danny Pink joining the TARDIS.

He might bring an interesting aspect to the show in that, he could be a mirror of The Doctor in a lot of ways.

We know that he's a former soldier, who suffers from some form of PTSD as a result of doing 'some thing' that, not only does he feel exceedingly guilty about himself, but 'some thing' that he expects others to judge him very harshly about.

The Doctor is often described as 'The man who started running and never stopped' being confronted with someone whol had similar experiences to him but DID choose to stop 'running' might make some very compelling tv.

I wouldn't necessarily say he feels exceedingly guilty... but he definitely carries the scars of war with him. It does make me wonder the sort of time frame the show writers are giving him from going from killing potentially "non-soldiers" to teaching kids, and whether it'd be realistic at all.

Beyond that, I definitely agree that, in the hands of an excellent writing team, it could make for an excellent story line, and some very poignant well played interactions between Pink and Doc... However we have Moffatt flying basically solo, so we'll see how things turn out.

We are over 10 years past the start of the Iraq and Afghan Wars.

It takes between one and four years roughly to qualify as a teacher in the UK, depending on your initial level of qualifications. There is time for a soldier to have fought in the war, left the army, retrained as a teacher and be employed in a school.

It is surprising where ex-soldiers end up, especially officers who have the advantage of a higher level of education to start with.

My old boss at Sony was a captain in infantry before going into Marketing. The bursar at my daughter's school was an army officer.

Isn't there some sort of fast-track scheme for ex-forces personnel to retrain as teachers as well,or have I imagined that?

I've never really been a fan of the new Doctor Who series, and was never really exposed to the originals in any great capacity, but I've quite enjoyed the two episodes that have been on so far for this season.

pgmason wrote:
Isn't there some sort of fast-track scheme for ex-forces personnel to retrain as teachers as well,or have I imagined that?

I believe there is, or it was at least planned by the current government.

Late to the discussion, but tenuous link to this series - the Helmets that Journey and her brother wear when in the space ship fighter thing in the first minute or so are made by the company I work at and are proper flying helmets, not fakey props

... Give it a couple of years and you'll be able to attened all the conventions and charge people for autographs !


Table next to the guy who was the stormtrooper who bashed his head on the door on the Deathstar !

If only I actually made them rather than add up the costs of them lol - then I'd get to the top table.

Apparently they use our helmets in Avatar too, but that was before my time here therefore not important

 pretre wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Are you talking about the chickie that looked like an alcie with badly (again read alcie) applied makeup?

Umm... What?

We're talking about Missy:

Spoiler:

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Wow. Don't google too much on Missy. Apparently, the end script for this season has been partially been leaked. Let me just go ahead and start drinking until I forget.

I'm immune to spoilers, PM me now!

 Paradigm wrote:

pgmason wrote:
Isn't there some sort of fast-track scheme for ex-forces personnel to retrain as teachers as well,or have I imagined that?

I believe there is, or it was at least planned by the current government.

He would not need it anyway. He would easily have done a degree, followed by a 10 year officer commission including Sandhurst, several tours in Afghanistan, had time to retrain as a teacher afterwards, and still be only 35 years old if he was born in 1979.

Young enough to be attractive to the late 20s Clara. Old enough to have had the life experiences that would make him a very different sort of companion for the Doctor.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:

pgmason wrote:
Isn't there some sort of fast-track scheme for ex-forces personnel to retrain as teachers as well,or have I imagined that?

I believe there is, or it was at least planned by the current government.

He would not need it anyway. He would easily have done a degree, followed by a 10 year officer commission including Sandhurst, several tours in Afghanistan, had time to retrain as a teacher afterwards, and still be only 35 years old if he was born in 1979.

Young enough to be attractive to the late 20s Clara. Old enough to have had the life experiences that would make him a very different sort of companion for the Doctor.

See but that's what I'm getting at... It "only" took me about 1-2 years to be able to talk about certain aspects of my second deployment without choking up in any way (I still have difficulty talking about some things, but that's a whole other thread)... And my question on the timeline was more along if Moffatt has done any sort of research on the subject, and goes with a "he was in the service, got out, and trained for a few years to be a teacher, but his issues are THAT ingrained that even after all this time he has trouble with them" as opposed to "he was a soldier, did some gak, now he's out and couple months later, boom! he's a teacher"

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The bursar at my daughter's school was an army officer.

Would it be ok to ask which school that was?

Well that was a bit daft.

Good fun, a bit thigh slapping in places but ultimately quite daft throughout and very daft at the end.

The Capaldi Doctor grows as a personality though. I like him and will keep watching.

HA-HAR!!

I look forward to next week's episode.

Oh god, that was dire even for a jokey episode. The 'next week' trailer was the best bit.

Well, I'm not entirely sure what the golden arrow actually did at the end, but Capaldi definitely made that episode worthwhile. Evidently, nobody at the BBC noticed him subtly flipping the bird at Robin Hood when he was putting his glove on.

 Paradigm wrote:
Oh god, that was dire even for a jokey episode. The 'next week' trailer was the best bit.

Oh come on! That was great. I'm starting to get a very Pertwee feel to this doctor.

I thought the episode was a bit hokey and forced in places but Calpaldi's Doctor certainly carried it through for me. The robot soldiers were an awesome design too, and Ben Miller always makes a good villain. It will be interesting to see how next weeks episode, which from the trailer looks far more cerebral, pans out. Looks like we will be getting at least some answers about Danny Pink too.

Am enjoying this series a lot.

 pretre wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:
Oh god, that was dire even for a jokey episode. The 'next week' trailer was the best bit.

Oh come on! That was great. I'm starting to get a very Pertwee feel to this doctor.

Nah, I'm not convinced. The only redeeming feature was the amazing-as-usual Capaldi, but what little plot there was to spell of was rushed and nonsensical (so, shooting a gold arrow at something makes it work better? I must remember that next time I need to recharge a computer ), Clara was back to being wooden as a chair leg, Robin and Co were just caricatures of themselves and impossible to take seriously.

I get that there are joke episodes, like The Crimson Horror, but they are at least usually entertaining and to some extent serious at the end. This was just bad, down there with Rings of Ahkaten, Nightmare in Silver and Love and Monsters.

On the plus side, next week's is slated to be very much like Midnight (small cast, small set, very character driven) which is one of my all time favourites, so I have high hopes.

I've got admit, I kinda liked this one. You do have to remember that ultimately, Dr Who is a family show though.

The Sherrif was enjoyable as a baddy and I like how he was pretty much played straightly.

The whole concept of Robin Hood being 'too heroic to be real' in The Doctors eyes, contrasting with Clara's thoughts on the Doctor was quite well played as well.

Besides, it wasn't quite this silly...

I liked that Clara was making the point that legends can be true (and the Doctor surely has a few), but the episode as a whole (bar Capaldi as has been said) was crap. ...So back to the usual then I suppose. It wasn't so much the poor writing, as the premise of Robin Hood being a real person. It just annoyed me that two thirds of the way through they explained that he was indeed fictional, then went back on that. Has Doctor Who ever (recently) treated a fictional character as though they were real before? To me it was like having an episode in Hogwarts.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
I liked that Clara was making the point that legends can be true (and the Doctor surely has a few), but the episode as a whole (bar Capaldi as has been said) was crap. ...So back to the usual then I suppose. It wasn't so much the poor writing, as the premise of Robin Hood being a real person. It just annoyed me that two thirds of the way through they explained that he was indeed fictional, then went back on that. Has Doctor Who ever (recently) treated a fictional character as though they were real before? To me it was like having an episode in Hogwarts.

Yep, the 2nd doctor ended up in fairy tale land where all the fictional characters where real.

The mind robber.

I think folks have a false sense of what doctor who is sometimes. (I think Compel gets it though. It's a family show with an enormous history. It is very hard to say 'This is how Dr Who is or should be' because it has worked in so many ways over the years.) This was very much an episode in the old tradition of pseudo-historicals. Heck, the 'robots in the past' thing has been done numerous times in the old series. As I said briefly earlier, the Capaldi-episodes are developing a very old school vibe and I'm guessing some nuWHo fans aren't going to like that as much.

Also, re: him being fictional. It isn't that they said he was fictional. It was the Robin Hood realized that he was legen.. wait for it.. dary. The doctor thought that he was fake because it was on the databanks, but he was wrong. It was in the databanks because Robin Hood is still famous in the future. I thought this was kind of obvious.


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 Paradigm wrote:
Nah, I'm not convinced. The only redeeming feature was the amazing-as-usual Capaldi, but what little plot there was to spell of was rushed and nonsensical (so, shooting a gold arrow at something makes it work better? I must remember that next time I need to recharge a computer ), Clara was back to being wooden as a chair leg, Robin and Co were just caricatures of themselves and impossible to take seriously.

I agree with the gold arrow thing, but the caricatures thing just shows that you didn't get it. They weren't caricatures of themselves; that was the point. The idea was that the legends were exactly correct. The Doctor thought they were fake because of that, but the point was that sometimes legends are true, necessary and exactly what was printed on the tin.

I get that there are joke episodes, like The Crimson Horror, but they are at least usually entertaining and to some extent serious at the end. This was just bad, down there with Rings of Ahkaten, Nightmare in Silver and Love and Monsters.

With the exception of L&M (which was written by a fan, wasn't it?), those are all fine episodes. And L&M is only really bad for the end, other than that, it's just mediocre.

On the plus side, next week's is slated to be very much like Midnight (small cast, small set, very character driven) which is one of my all time favourites, so I have high hopes.

I am very excited after the preview. The next week looks great.

Also, for all of those who were raging about the heaven jumps in previous episodes, you'll see that this week was much more subtle.


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Also, little bits:
- Did the doctor flip off Robin at one point (Putting on the gloves)?
- Did he use Venusian Judo to disarm Robin?

Feeling very combination of Pertwee's physicality, hand-on approach and Baker's grumpy humor.

Ahh well.

It did look like there was some Venusian martial arts going on, complete with the obligatory yell, which was a nice nod. I noticed the glove thing too, but I think it was just coincidence.

I see where you're coming from with the characterisation of the Merry Men, but I just don't think they needed to ham it up so much. I'd have much preferred to see something like what was done in the Robin Hood series, a more 'realistic' take on it. With how many times Dr Who has put a different spin on history/legend, too see Robin ect shown just like characters from a panto just didn't work for me. I get what they were going for, but I don't think it works.

And I believe Absorbaloff was fan made, but the episode was written by an actual writer. Nightmare in Silver killed the Cybermen with the stupid Borg-like upgrading, it remains to be seen whether this year's finale fixes them.

I think the hamming was intentional to make the point, but oh well.

Also, another nod to Pertwee was the reference to miniscope (Carnival of Monsters).

 Paradigm wrote:
I'd have much preferred to see something like what was done in the Robin Hood series, a more 'realistic' take on it. With how many times Dr Who has put a different spin on history/legend, too see Robin ect shown just like characters from a panto just didn't work for me. I get what they were going for, but I don't think it works.

I'd argue this was a different spin of things. We've had 20 years now of po-faced Robin Hoods in TV, books and film (Russell Crowe). The episode was playing up this expectation as well - "he can't be real" "it's a trick" "he's a robot" etc and this was then deliberately inverted and ended up making a good point about Heroes and Legends as well.

This all came through to me as a very deliberate attempt at character reconstruction to me.

Not seen it it but did anyone ask "So how long have you been a Robber" or "have you met the poor?"

 Mr Morden wrote:
Not seen it it but did anyone ask "So how long have you been a Robber" or "have you met the poor?"

Excellent reference but no.

Also, I think Compel's spot on about what they were shooting for. We've had enough dark and gritty Hood.