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I did find the Dr's BS about guns grating.

Guns are bad M'kay.....but I am fine with:

Secretly infecting a bad guy with a virus that unravels his DNA and only telling him when he activates it.
Blowing stuff up
Electrocuting people/aliens/wierd stuff
EMP bombs and atmospheric flamethrowers

Some equally stupid BS about a Venusian martial art that I doubt will ever be used again.

Its all right for those with a hand of god screwdriver to do everythign for them...

Venusian Martial Art?

Might want to skip pretty much all of Pertwee’s stories then.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Venusian_aikido

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Venusian Martial Art?

Might want to skip pretty much all of Pertwee’s stories then.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Venusian_aikido

Ah sorry my mistake ! Didn't recall that at all.

No worries

There’s been a few hark backs to previous incarnations. The tinkering to build stuff reminds me of McCoy, and I really hope we see more of it.

 AduroT wrote:
We made living cloth that hunts you down and strangles you.
Ok that’s cool.
And it can read your mind and know your past and your fears.
Uh, ok, sure why not.
And it uses that information to flutter around and taunt you for awhile before it kills you.
Wait what? Why?

To have an 'spooky' scene of things that are legally distinct from Harry Potter Dementors that you can also stick in the season trailer.
And also drop in the keyword for the season's story arc.

Mr Morden wrote:I did find the Dr's BS about guns grating.

Hasn't the Doctor always been anti-gun? Telling that their tool of choice is the screwdriver, not some kind of weapon.

Guns are bad M'kay.....but I am fine with:

Secretly infecting a bad guy with a virus that unravels his DNA and only telling him when he activates it.

I mean, she did warn him. It wouldn't have been out of place for Tennant or Eccleston.

Blowing stuff up

Again, that's normal for most Doctors.

Electrocuting people/aliens/wierd stuff

No telling that any of it was sentient - explicitly saying that the first alien was only "semi-sentient".

EMP bombs and atmospheric flamethrowers

EMP doesn't kill, necessarily, and the flamethrower is used on a non-sentient, essential WMD target.

Some equally stupid BS about a Venusian martial art that I doubt will ever be used again.

Already a Who thing.

Its all right for those with a hand of god screwdriver to do everythign for them...

And again, already a Doctor Who thing. Most of this (anti-gun, deus-ex screwdriver) is commonplace already.

Are we sure that the bag things are non-sentient?

Already admitted cocked up re the venusian thing - honestly didn;t recall it

If (this time) IIRC Dr's often seem to make weapons but just not guns as such....

Doctor Who has never had a problem with unavoidable commission of violence against the violent.

The Doctor is a bit like The Culture, all nice and peaceful and helpful until someone feths with them.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Doctor Who has never had a problem with unavoidable commission of violence against the violent.

The Doctor is a bit like The Culture, all nice and peaceful and helpful until someone feths with them.

True - although the Culture tries to deal with potential problems before they happen, and has no problem with weapons.

It would be interesting to see what they thought of each other.

Lets not forget the whole 'ejecting a dude into space to be blown up by a Macross Missile Massacre' in 'Dinosaurs on a Spaceship.'

To be fair though, he was Walder Frey (and also the Doctor...)

 Riquende wrote:

Also, when the ship crashed, why did none of them think to run sideways out of the way, rather than just directly away in the direction of travel? I get that the sides were sloped, but it was was shallow incline...

It's a fairly ingrained instinct when something big and scary is coming towards you to run directly away from it...


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I was a bit disappointed with this one. JW continues to shine as the Doctor, and this episode was a cool premise, but that was some godawful weak writing.

And while I have no problem at all with the Doctor being a woman, why on earth is the Tardis green...? Hoping that's just the lighting in that scene.

 Compel wrote:
Lets not forget the whole 'ejecting a dude into space to be blown up by a Macross Missile Massacre' in 'Dinosaurs on a Spaceship.'

To be fair though, he was Walder Frey (and also the Doctor...)

Not seen much in recent years tbh

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I wonder if the Timeless Child will end up being the Doctor's daughter. I always lamented how that was too great a concept for a one-off.

I hope it is Susan.

 insaniak wrote:

 Riquende wrote:

Also, when the ship crashed, why did none of them think to run sideways out of the way, rather than just directly away in the direction of travel? I get that the sides were sloped, but it was was shallow incline...

It's a fairly ingrained instinct when something big and scary is coming towards you to run directly away from it...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I was a bit disappointed with this one. JW continues to shine as the Doctor, and this episode was a cool premise, but that was some godawful weak writing.

And while I have no problem at all with the Doctor being a woman, why on earth is the Tardis green...? Hoping that's just the lighting in that scene.

Think you need to adjust your set. Was most definitely Tardis Blue.

I Did look a little off color when she was up against the door.

I think it's changed colour, yes. But it's more teal than green or blue.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Think you need to adjust your set. Was most definitely Tardis Blue.

It's really not:


Not as green as it looked in the shot from directly outside as she looked at the doors (I think that was partially the yellowish lighting in that scene) but it's definitely not the same bright blue.

 Riquende wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I wonder if the Timeless Child will end up being the Doctor's daughter. I always lamented how that was too great a concept for a one-off.

I really, really hope not. "We have a lady Doctor now, better stick a kiddywink in there" is also something of a mixed message.

The Doctor's daughter presumably being the "clone" made of David Tennant. Georgia Moffet.

Didn't they also throw Toby Jones in there as some malevolent powerful entity (dreams, nightmares etc) and then never use him again?

Yes, I meant her.

I may have misheard it, but I took the 'Timeless Child' as referring to the Doctor.

 insaniak wrote:
I may have misheard it, but I took the 'Timeless Child' as referring to the Doctor.

That was the way I interpreted it as well.

Reckon it's worth another watch myself, just for clarity on that line.

And yes, maybe I need to adjust my set. In that pick, it's much closer to GW's steggie green.

To be fair, I think when it first appears it looked more blue, it was only when the Doctor was standing at the doors that it looked greenish, but it was quite striking, and that picture I linked above certainly looks more of a teal colour than blue. With the distressed wood finish, I think the colour is going to look a bit different from different angles.

Isn’t it odd that the outside would change at all? My understanding is it’s a police box because of a broken chameleon unit that leaves it stuck as the blue box.

The outisde of the TARDIS has changed multiple times before, this is just the most striking change in a while.

Honeslty not sure what the in-universe reason for it is meant to be.

The changing shape of the Tardis is obvious a result of different production teams, but it’s referenced in universe particularly in the new series a few times so it’s specifically happening in-universe too. In the story with the 1st and 12th Doctors meeting, they rebuilt Hartnell’s style of policebox to stand next to the current one so clearly they are acknowledging they are physically different. In Logopolis the Doctor specifically tries to reprogram the shape of the exterior to be more accurate to the dimensions of a police box. Ludicrous sounding premise to start a story but it suggests that while the chameleon circuit is broken, meaning it can’t predict entirely new forms to camouflage into new surrounding, it is flexible to small changes.

Over the years it’s been implied the Tardis is at least semi-sentient, because of its complexity and affinity for the owner, it’s not an organism as such but it’s not merely a machine. The exterior is suggested to be somewhat adaptable, but is fixed in the form of a police box.

I wouldn't obsess about the detail changes in the outside of the TARDIS.

Although the original design is based on the Metropolitan Police Box, obviously the BBC have had to make a number of shells over the decades (Dr Who started in 1963!) The effect of ageing, different batches of paint, and different TV systems over the years means there's bound to be some variation.

That said, the Matt Smith episode "The Doctor's Wife" appeared to reveal that the TARDIS's controlling machine spirit, not only is femaie, but also has as much or more control over the TARDIS as the Doctor him or herself.

The new coloration IMO can be explained by the alien planet lighting, but it could also be an indication that the TARDIS is reacting to the new persona of the Doctor.

It will be interesting to see if the show addresses the idea that the TARDIS has a female machine spirit because the Doctor is male, in a scenario where the Doctor is female.

Didn't one of the characters mention there was a green policebox in their town well before we saw the new Doctor's one in the flesh? That's either superficial foreshadowing/justification("there are green policeboxes sometimes, so it's OK when the Doctor's chooses that colour"), or an indication there will be some fairly local time travel stuff going on over the season(ie either the the box they're referring to was the new TARDIS, or the new TARDIS intuited that the Doc would need to be inconspicuous in a town with green(more teal, really) policeboxes and so changed to that colour in advance).

The AA and RAC also used to have phone boxes. The RAC ones were a paler greenish-blue.

The Police Box was invented by the Metropolitan Police, and probably was painted dark blue to match the uniforms which have been a dark blue since the force's inception in the 1820s.
All the ones I've seen were dark bllue.

It's possible that a regional force made boxes a different colour, or maybe the blue paint faded to a greener colour over time.

However, as Doctor Who is fiction there's no reason a character shouldn't say something like seeing a police box of a different colour. It might even be a little bit of in-universe in which the green box they've seen is the new greenish-blue TARDIS gone back in time.

If the new TARDIS actually is the new colour we think, that is. I still think the colour is mostly the result of the light of the alien sun.

Maybe we'll find out tonight.

Decent historical episode for Black History Month.

Felt the bad guy’s motivation was a little thin. But then, that’s racists for you. No real justification or merit for or to their actions.

That was a really good episode. It took us back to some of the original purpose of Dr Who, which was intended to be historically instructional.

The villain was a bit sketchy, as you say, but as a one-off villain I think we can accept he was a white supremacist from the future, and don't need a lot of background info to justify it.

What surprised me was how scary I found the whitey menace, from the cop in the motel room. It was actually more frightening than the Daleks. Perhaps humankind's worst enemy is us.