Doctor Who Thread III: Reverse the Polarity of the Neutron Flow

[CurlyKitGirl]

Ehh, I generally don't pick up on romantic banter until it's literally smacking me in the face. This has lead to some rather embarrassing moments in my life.

Anyway that's part of why I enjoy reading Curly's reviews, she has the ability to take anything and turn it into romantic banter. It's like looking at the world through some strange, insane, shipping based lens.

I admit to writing strange and insane reviews, but I don't - no, let's face it, I kind of do. A lot. But not often in all seriousness. And reading innuendos into things is fun.
I'm tempted to turn that last sentence into a subtitle for my reviews actually, but it'd probably make people think it was purely interested in shipping which it isn't. Most of the time. Hell, I find myself friendshipping more than anything.

Power of three response

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Number of times you actually compared episode to Charmed: 0.
I'm amused by this, especially given the length of your explanation.

It was my first impression, but then the Reaper Man hints started appearing and I was distracted.

Yes. Definitely. Pretty much for the reasons Brian gives at the end of the episode.

The bad side of this review being months late is I can't remember what she said. And I'm not even getting the DVDs today like I usually would, because I wanted to leave it until I could get the full series.

Well, the internet exists and has many ways of finding Doctor Who episodes on it.

If you like custard, maybe. Doubtless a lot of people will have already tried it and posted about it on the internet, so you can always google if you're curious.

Eh. I like custard well enough, but fish fingers are a bit of a chore.

Quite possibly the best bit of the episode. I probably said as much at the time. Yes, actually I remember, I said in general that I loved all of the little character moments in this episode, and they were really the important bit of it, while unfortunately the actual plot was less well developed.

This is interesting, with you running way behind on these, while you're viewing them blind, I'm reading your reviews kind of half-blind because it's been a while so I'm trying to call up vague recollections of both what happened in the episode and what I thought about it at the time based on what you're saying.

I'd love to see what someone who's never seen an episode of Doctor Who try to talk about [insert episode] based purely on my review of it. They would miss so much stuff/

And in general, I love Doctor Who for the character moments, yes, the plots are sometimes very good, there are great and marvellous spectacles, but it's the small moments that make this show for me.They even redeem average and sort-of-bad episodes for me. Like in 'The Invasion' where there are a lot of slow moments, but the characters fill it nicely.

No, I am not saying 'The Invasion' is bad/

...
..I know you know that's Shakespeare...

What Kato said:

(I guess Curly was not referring to the original because Hamlet did say it - as Picard explained - ironically where Picard used it in honesty to defend humanity.

I was tired, and it was late, and I'd had a bit to drink, and I was liveblogging so sometimes I skip half sentences (and more) in order to keep up.

I also didn't really see the need to mention that Picard was quoting Shakespeare because everyone either knows that, or recognises the quote was from Shakespeare and thus reads the implied 'Picard quoted Shakespeare' angle.

...
..this is one of those things that's super-obvious as soon as someone else points it out.
Although, that said, having recently re-read Reaper Man, the element of that plot which is just the snow-globes getting taken home and being left lying around was kind of interesting, because it's true, that is how humans work. It was just the whole trolley/shopping mall thing where it got weird and I just started skimming through looking for the wizards saying funny things, or skipping straight back to Death (This time, that is - obviously the first few times I read it I read the whole thing).

Which is why I said less-interesting, I do admit to focussing more on Death's plot that the shopping trolley plot myself because that is beautiful.
So I really was the first person to point that out here? Well, I last read it in October-ish in preparation for my Hogfather reading and watching earlier this month, so it was more prominent in my mind than it would be in say . . . February. Which isn't much less prominent to be honest.

Pretty sure several of us said exactly the same thing when discussing this episode shortly after it was broadcast.

Hooray for once again agreeing with the majority after seriously overthinking something!

This I would disagree with. I mean, maybe it might be considered average on average (Surely there must be a better way I could have phrased that), but the existence of the worse bits does not lessen the quality of the great bits. It's again like Reaper Man in that respect - Cubes=snowglobes is a bit lacklustre, especially in resolution; Doctor=Death is amazing and has some incredibly touching moments.

But it's not memorable enough. The DOctor lived with humans (in close quarters) with Smithy first and I felt it was mostly better done there because that was the focus, the general plot was the same as Reaper Man and the bits that followed the best parts of Reaper Man were done better in Doctor Who elsewhere.

This is one of my 'irrational' - although I don't think I should put quote marks around irrational considering I know full well I often am - biases where it was just all done better elsewhere and I can't really bring myself to appreciate the episode as a whole no matter how much I like elements of it.

No plot can do Reaper Man quite as well as Reaper Man, even as I acknowledge that many of Reaper Man's themes are prominent elsewhere in fiction.

Merry Christmas!

I know! I got a lovely haul, and finished Christmas dinner a couple of hours ago. Drunk a third of a bottle of not-very-nice wine on my own, then a couple of potent chocolate liquer bottles, then cracked open a bottle of rose.
Now it's time to catch up on Doctor Who before watching and reviewing Doctor Who Christmas Special and then watching some of my new and shiny Classic Who DVDs.
I have John Pertwee now.

Well, first: Merry Christmas to all of you! I'm afraid I won't be able to watch the new Christmas Special on time so I'll have to stay away from here for a while, I guess.

That's a shame darling. But don't worry, it'll be up online somewhere by the end of the day. And this thread isn't going anywhere, so we await your return.

Regarding "Power of Three"
Spoilers for smaller reasons.

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Haha, I never made that connection to Charmed But it was a decent enough show back when I was young. Though I don't think it would keep up to my nostalgia now.

I watching it intermittently on a Freeview channel over here, it's still in the early seasons, which I've mostly forgotten and it still holds some of its charm. Pardon my pun.

I don't know who this Shakespeare person is. Clearly Sir Patrick Stewart could not be reciting some hardly known drama named after a Danish prince or some such. Those were the unique words of Jean-Luc Picard towards Q! Heresy!
(I guess Curly was not referring to the original because Hamlet did say it - as Picard explained - ironically where Picard used it in honesty to defend humanity.)

Exactly so. That's the problem when your hands can't keep up with your brain etc. etc., you miss out important bits.

Regarding the Reaper Man comparison: I know it seemed familiar to me. But while, yeah, there are quite a few similarities weren't the events in Reaper Man merely accidental due to the overflow of life energy along with the lots of undead rather than the Auditors doing? But overall, yes, there are quite a lot of things that seem similar, probably too much for it to be an accident. Than again the "humans are the vermin of the universe" thing is pretty common and many shows have used it at some point along with a "How noble in reason" speech or something similar given by a human or humanity's protector. So... it's a pretty standard scenario.

Which is why it's just nearly identical; really the main difference (aside from the surreal humour) is that the cubes were intentional rather than a by-product of the Auditors main goal. But still, their goal (especially in Hogfather and Thief of Time is to prevent humanity's messy creativity and humanity spoiling the universe and so they try to . . . kill it.

Granted, it's a pretty standard scenario, but the way the cubes are almost footnotes to part of the story evokes Reaper Man, and I watched/read Hogfather not a week ago. And well (spoilers):

“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.” [/quote]

And this is kind of why I wished it was possible for Terry Pratchett to write (or assist in writing) an episode or Doctor Who. Standard ideas, but in a new way.

[QUOTE=Kato;14429121]And the overall conclusion... I think it's the fandom's general opinion. Apart from the few who couldn't stand the episode at all. (Though I would have liked the episode without any threat at all, just being comedic life of the Ponds)

Same. Kind of like 'The Lodger'. We don't need monsters to keep our attention, just give us some character drama.

Koorly's Doctor Who Review Archive:
Classic Who

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Second Doctor

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Series 6
'The Invasion' 1/8, 2/8, 3/8 part one, part two, 4/8 part one, part two, 5/8, 6/8, 7/8, 8/8

Fourth Doctor

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Series 12
'Genesis of the Daleks' 1/6, 2/6, 3/4, 5/6, 6/6

Seventh Doctor

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Series 25
'Remembrance of the Daleks' 1/4 part 1, part 2, 2/4, 3/4, 4/4

Nu Who

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Season 1 - retrospective

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Brief Whole Series Retrospective
Ep. 1 'Rose'
Ep. 2 'The End of the World'
Ep. 3 'The Unquiet Dead'
Ep. 4: 'Aliens of London' (1/2)
Ep. 5: 'World War III' (2/2)
Ep. 6: 'Dalek'
Ep. 7: 'The Long Game'
Ep. 8: 'Father's Day'
Ep. 9: 'The Empty Child' (1/2)
Ep. 10: 'The Doctor Dances' (2/2)
Ep. 11: 'Boom Town'
Ep. 12: 'Bad Wolf' (1/2)
Ep. 13: 'The Parting of the Ways' (2/2)

Christmas Episode: 'The Christmas Invasion'

Season 2 - retrospective

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Brief Whole Series Retrospective
Ep. 1: 'New Earth'
Ep. 2: 'Tooth and Claw'
Ep. 3: 'School Reunion'
Ep. 4: 'The Girl in the Fireplace'
Ep. 5: 'Rise of the Cybermen' (1/2)
Ep. 6: 'The Age of Steel' (2/2)
Ep. 7: 'The Idiot's Lantern'
Ep. 8: 'The Impossible Planet' (1/2)
Ep. 9: 'The Satan Planet' (2/2)
Ep. 10: 'Love and Monsters'
Ep. 11: 'Fear Her'
Ep. 12: 'Army of Ghosts' (1/2)
Ep. 13: 'Doomsday' (2/2) GOODBYE ROSE!
Charity Special: 'Doctor Who: Children in Need'
Christmas Episode: 'The Runaway Bride'

Season 3 - blind bar Moffat

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Ep. 1: 'Smith and Jones'
Ep. 2: 'The Shakespeare Code'
Ep. 3: 'Gridlock'
Ep. 4: 'Daleks in Manhattan' (1/2)
Ep. 5: 'Evolution of the Daleks' (2/2)
Ep. 6: 'The Lazarus Experiment'
Ep. 7: '42'
Ep. 8: 'Human Nature' (1/2)
Ep. 9: 'The Family of Blood' (2/2)
Ep. 10: 'Blink'
Ep. 11: 'Utopia' (1/3)
Ep. 12: 'The Sound of the Drums' (2/3)
Ep. 13: 'The Last of the Time Lords' (3/3)
Children in Need 2007 episode: 'Time Crash'
2007 Christmas Episode: 'Voyage of the Damned'

Bits and Bobs
Retrospective - to be written later
Why I Do Not Like Martha/Ten (This was written between my write ups of ep. 8 and ep 9)

Season Four blind bar Moffat

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Ep. 1: 'Partners in Crime'
Ep. 2: 'The Fires of Pompeii'
Ep. 3: 'Planet of the Ood'
Ep. 4: 'The Sontaran Stratagem' (1/2)
Ep. 5: ‘The Poison Sky‘ (2/2)
Ep. 6: ‘The Doctor‘s Daughter‘ Two part review.
Ep. 7: 'The Unicorn and the Wasp'
Ep. 8: 'Silence in the Library' (1/2)
Ep. 9: 'Forest of the Dead' (2/2)
Ep. 10: 'Midnight'
Ep. 11: 'Turn Left' (1/3)
Ep. 12: 'The Stolen Earth' (2/3)
Ep. 13: 'Journey's End' (3/3)

The Specials]
1: 'The Next Doctor'
2: 'Planet of the Dead'
3: 'The Waters of Mars'
4: 'The End of Time' (1/2)
5: 'The End of Time' (2/2)

Season 5 - blind bar Moffat's Angels

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Ep. 1: 'The Eleventh Hour' (including 'Meanwhile in the TARDIS 1')
Ep. 2: 'The Beast Below'
Ep. 3: 'Victory of the Daleks'
Ep. 4: 'The Time of the Angels' (1/2)
Ep. 5: 'Flesh and Stone' (2/2) (including 'Meanwhile in the TARDIS 2')
Ep. 6: 'The Vampires of Venice'
Ep. 7: 'Amy's Choice'
Ep. 8: 'The Hungry Earth' (1/2)
Ep. 9: 'Cold Blood' (2/2)
Ep. 10: 'Vincent and the Doctor'
Ep. 11: 'The Lodger' (bar the angels this was the first episode I saw)
Ep. 12: 'The Pandorica Opens' (1/2)
Ep. 13: 'The Big Bang' (2/2)
Christmas Episode: 'A Christmas Carol'

Season 6

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To to things this series was split in two, as such eps. 8 - Christmas episode will be liveblogged, and the first seven will be written with me having seen them before.
Ep. 1: 'The Impossible Astronaut' (1/2)
Ep. 2: 'Day of the Moon' (2/2)
Ep. 3: 'The Curse of the Black Spot'
Ep. 4: 'The Doctor's Wife' HELL YEAH!
Ep. 5: 'The Rebel Flesh' (1/2)
Ep. 6: 'The Almost People' (2/2)
Ep. 7: 'A Good Man Goes to War'
Ep. 8: 'Let's Kill Hitler'
Ep. 9: 'Night Terrors'
Ep. 10: 'The Girl Who Waited'
Ep. 11: 'The God Complex'
Ep. 12: 'Closing Time'
Ep. 13: 'The Wedding of River Song'

Red Nose Day Specials: 'Space'/'Time'
2011 Christmas Special: 'The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe'

Season 7

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Liveblogged unless otherwise mentioned.

Ep. 1: 'Asylum of the Daleks'
Ep. 2: 'Dinosaurs On A Spaceship'
Ep. 3: 'A Town Called Mercy'
Ep. 4: 'The Power of Three'
Ep. 5: 'The Muppets Take Manhattan'
'P.S.'
'The Great Detective' CiN minisode
'Vastra Investigates' minisode
2012 Christmas episode: 'The Snowman'

Odds and Sods

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Things that don't really fit anywhere.

'Good As Gold' Second Blue Peter scriptwriting competition for Doctor Who

And now, to boldly go where many have gone before. [*cue TNG theme (Such a awesome introduction)*]

'The Muppets Take Manhattan' (season 7a, ep. 5)

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So, the Ponds are leaving, I kind of wish they didn't tout the Last Episode of [Companion] so much as I'm sure that it would have more impact if we didn't know. It'd be like going into reading A Game of Thrones or A Storm of Swords knowing about the Events that made those two books infamous.

I'm not saying that a Companion's departure is on the same level as what happened, I am not; but Showrunners, take a bit of advice from River Song: Spoilers. And lie. You did with Jenna-Lousie Coleman, so why not now?

But on with the show!

We're in New York. Quelle suprise, maybe if the title wasn't a shout out this would be a surprise. Also it's raining. Not a surprise given the (very nice) film noir narration opening.

We're following a PI who's being paid $25 000 to investigate Weeping Angels, so the narration is actually case notes being written as is -

the angel is not an angel.

And now we're off to Battery Park, but shortly before that, we'll have an Ominous shot of the - ah, there's our angel. Why is the girl playing peekaboo with it?

I love the camera work here. It's so noir. All dark angles and slow shots. Well,there's an Angel stalking the PI so he's dead. And the music itself is foreboding/ Why is Garner's name on the door? Isn't he Garner? I missed the - it is.

There's a man in bed. PI: "They're going to send you back in time. I'm you. I'm. You."

Well, now I'm terrified. Let's just chase a man through a dark creepy 1920s hotel while being stalked by Angels - the whut.

The Statue of Liberty is an Angel.

Okay. Normally when I pause during the title scene it's to look up writer information, but I don't need to today because the Angels belong to Steven Moffat, who has written many excellent episodes of Doctor Who. Today I want to say this: New York is the 'city that never sleeps'! The Angels move when someone's not looking at them. The Statue of Liberty is one of the most famous landmarks in the world, I'm pretty sure there's slways someone looking at it. And even if it wasn't looked at twenty-four seven, I think people would notice if a one hundred and fifty foot statue suddenly moved! Also: can't people go inside it? And aren't there photographs of it being built in situ? So when would it have become an Angel? It's not just random statuary which actually can show up out of the blue and go relatively unremarked.

People have built and been inside this thing. And I doubt an Angel can shape itself to look like the Statue of Liberty (now Liberty) to such a perfect extent that no one would notice, not even the guards and people who work there and maintain it. AND IT WAS BUILT OF COPPER, NOT STONE. And and and and WHAT. And even if an Angel can change its physiology to perfectly mimic Liberty in all ways:

1) How did they replace Liberty without anyone noticing?

2) Even if the Angel managed to move, how could it make its way across the bay and all those streets without making a noise, being seen or damaging something?!?!

Suspension of dislief shattered, let's ignore Liberty as we've covered pretty much everything about its implausibility. Now, go reference Ghostbusters for how people would and should react to a suddenly animated and mobile Statue of Liberty.

And the Director is Nick Hurran who also directed 'The Girl Who Waited', 'Th God Complex' and 'Asylum of the Daleks'. No wonder the atmosphere is so deep and moody here.

And now it's modern day New York. Cue the usual shots of New York (including of That Rock in Central Park) intermixed with statues. Melody Malone? Who - Amy has glasses, D: "I don't like them, they make your eyes look liney. Oh, oh no, carry on." And Rory runs. Or tries to. Because the first signs of aging is a dangerous topic/

Fortunately now they're kissing.

Also, Melody Malone? I know a Melody Pond. And stocking and cleavage and stuff. River?

And the Doctor has reading glasses. And needs them? And looks suitably adorkable in them.

Great, evil giggles and a missing cherub baby. How do Weeping Angels procreate? And they giggle. I also - called it. And now Rory's back in time. I think? It's a bit confusing, but it feels noir.

A: "[Rory] went to get coffee and turned up in a book! How does that happen?"

D: "I don't know, it's New York!"

Oh, 1938. Rory got Angel'd to death. R: "The city's full of time distortions, can't land the TARDIS here. Even I couldn't do it."

D: "Who couldn't do it?!"

A: "Don't argue with a book!" So. This is a bit meta. Anyone else feelig overwhelmed (in a good way) by meta? And they broke the TARDIS because tehey can't get to 1938.

A: "Page 43. You're going to break something." And then she quoted the book, and now - argh.

D: "I'm going to break something because you told me I'm going to do something." and it

Well balls. Thank you Doctor. You said it, and I thought it was a thing, but then we zoomed out to Rory's gravestone. Couldn't you have just, not put that shot in there?

Bad Guy?: "Yes. Give them to the babies." Also, scary black guy as a mobsters henchman: unfortunate implications?

And now we're in the early Chin dynasty because earlier - YOWZAH. Well, yes, River does look lovely as always. - Rory remarked he could translate the writing on the pottery so message time.

Pet Angel? R: "So, girlfriend then?" I . . . don't want to consider how that works. Even jokily. In chains. And it's screaming - for help?

Oh. Henry von Statten and his Dalek.

Wait. Angels can break locks. And . . . what?

Those Angel babies looked like they were having an orgy then. Ys. This is creepy. I can't imagine why you would think otherwise. And then it blew out the match.

Not Statten collects Weeping Angels. Then the Doctor comes and R: "Just you wait 'til my husband gets home." The Doctor's smartening himself up for River as "final checks".

R: 2Oh I was pardoned ages ago, and it's Professor Song to you." Because the Doctor undid his existence, so River can't have kiled someone who exists. And she says, "Doctor Who?" again.

Okay. The Doctor broke River's wrist because Amy read it in a book because he has no choice because he read it and what.

And chapter titles are spoilers. Rory's in the cellar. Problem is: the last two chapters: "Death at Winter Quay" and "Amelia's Last Farewell", so now they're going to happen and if Rory dies I will not be happy.

And the Angels clearly aren't moving when people aren'#t looking at them, which is fine, you don't need to move if you don't want to - and what. Angels are spatial transporters too? Super powers out your arse much?

But hope! River got her wrist out without breaking so it's possibleto change - oh no. She lied to . . . give him hope? So . . . a woman conceals an injury done to her from her husband because he maybe-sort-of-kind-of-did-it? In one versionof events. And her explanation for why she hid it is "[...] one does one's best to hide the damage."

And heals her wrist with rengerenergy. "Nothing is gained by you being a sentimental idiot! You embarrass me!" Ehm. One: so now he has a partial regeneration left? Two: actually, a lot of the time the Doctor saves things by being sentimental. Three: and you were a psychotic brainwashed mass murderer. I think that's a little more embarrassing than being a bit sentimental.

A: "Why did you lie?"

R: "Never let him see the damage. And never, ever, let him see you leave[?]. He doesn't like endings." One: all things end. Two: I don't know if this is me reading too much into it, or being a girl or something, but it sounds a little like the excuse an abused parter/person would give.

Also: Rory's dying. Again. This time in front of himself. Poor Rory. And gorgeous music. And poor Amy. R: "someone tell me, please, what is going on?"

D: "Sorry Rory. You just died." Again.

So . . . the Angels built at hotel "to feed off [their victims] time energy. Over and over again. [...] It's a battery farm." That's pretty scary.

R: "Well, they haven't taken me yet. Let's just run. [...] That never happened."

D: "It did. You just witnessed your own future." But there's the possibility of making a pardox. And Amy WILL. NOT. Let them take him. Even if they chase him forever.

But there's an Angel outside the door. And that clanky noise outside the hotel? Liberty. The Angels lighty-off powers are stronger than a sonic screwdriver.

Also, Liberty's back. And Amy somehow can't see it even though she was facing it. I think. The video's REALLY LAGGY./ Ah, they saw.

A: "Any way out."

R: "Uh, no. But there's a way out." It's a sheer drop.

no.

R: "This will work. If I die now, it's a paradox. [...] Please, 'cause I am really scared."

well. I'm crying now. And Amy has to push. (Also, lampshading the You Killed Rory theme)Rory . . .

Amy . . .

No.

No jumping allowed.

no. NO. No. Even if you think you'll come back to life you can't jump. A: "Together or not at all."

D: "What are you doing?1"

A: "Changing the future. It's called marriage."

They jumped.

They jump[d.

It's working but theyjumped. And I love the music. They. Jumped.

And now it's 2012 and they're back in the graveyard. A: "WHy are we always here."

D: "I couold have lost you both. Don't. Ever. Do. That. Again."

Agreed. And now the other couple are discussing fixing up the TARDIS. But there's an Angel statue. Oh great Rory. You just saw your own gravestone.

DONonweklfno[NSAKNN

Rory's dead. D: "I'm sorry Amelia. I'm so, so sorry." And one more paradox would rip the city apart. And Amy - "there's room for one more name isn't there? [...] The Angel. Would it send me back to the same time? [...] I just have to blink right? It'll be fine, it will, we'll be together.

You look after hi,. You be a good girl, and you look after him. [...] I'll be fine. I'll be with him." This is horrible and I hate it.

D: "Come back to the TARDIS with me. Please."

A: "Raggedy Man, goodbye." Rory Arthur (Darvill) Williams, and his loving wife Amelia Williams. She either came back five years earlier, or lived without him for five years after his death.

The Doctor sis told not to travel alone. D: "Come with me then."

R: "Wherever and whenever you want. But not all the time. One psychopath per TARDIS is enough I think. This book I write, I assume I'll send it to Amy to publish., I'll tell her to write an afterword for you. Maybe you'll listen to her."

D: "Trust Amy."

A: "[A]bove all else, we love you always." She also exhorts him to go visit wee!Amelia and tell her story. So he does.

Scream out!

Preview: No preview this time.

Best Moment: The rooftop scene and the graveyard scene at the end. That was horrible and beautifully moving and heartbreaking. Even with the silly Liberty in the background. It completes Amy's character arc going from a woman who ran off with the Doctor on her wedding night to someone who is completely devoted to Rory to the point of wanting to die by Angel for the chance to live with him back in the past.

Worst Moment: I think it's more of an unfortunate implication than anything, so can I talk about this down below? It's not really a moment, but more of a theme that concerns me. But it's the broken wrist scene.

Best Actor: Oh Amy. Karen Gillan you gave your everything in this episode and it was heartrending. Seriously, the moment she realised what he was doing you could hear her heart practically stop.

Worst Actor: Scary Black Guy. He was tall, had a deep voice and was a scary black henchman to a mobster, and was a walking cliche. I understand this is also in part due to the writing rather than performance, and there wasn't much there to do, but he was the least good.

Best Special Effect: The Angels are, as always a wonderful example of prosthetics, and I'm kind of glad they didn't have the Angels move onscreen. Out-of-universe this is probably because the reaction to them moving onscreen was mixed, but in-universe there probably isn't enough free energy around or something, but they were still brilliant.

Worst Special Effect: With the exception of the Liberty Angel whose mere presence (and catalyst for the human farming?) completely shattered my suspension of disbelief and made me realise the show wasn't real.

Also the baby Angels were weird and unsettling. I don't know whether this is a result of their concept or realisation, but they exist and it's weird and creepy.

Most Punchable Character: I want to punch Mobster Boss for trying to collect Weeping Angels and for being another von Statten. Not that I don't think the idea of von Statten wasn't a good thing, but Mobster Boss knew the Angels were dangerous and coming for him/people and didn't give a monkeys.

Honorary runner up to River for reasons I shall mention below.

Death Count:Two. The worst two.

Kink of the Episode: River always looks nice in a low-cut top, but surprisingly, glasses!Doctor. I know Tennant was pretty good looking in glasses, but Smith just. It really brings out his inner dork, but in a cute way.

Was Not Expecting: I knew they were leaving but I thought they'd just leave. Also it was surprisingly meta.

Overall thoughts?
I think people were expecting more from this episode because it was the last one until Christmas, a kind of mini-finale.

I really enjoyed the meta as the book was literally the script for the episode (as an aside, I don't know if time travel works that way even within Doctor Who, but I think it's based off the 'if you observed it happen, or it was said to have happened then it has to happen' principle. This type of fixed point seems to be a different fixed point in time to the one from 'The Fires of Pompeii'. I don't actually know if I agree with fixed points as, if you remember from Nu Who season one Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire didn't happen when it was meant to because Daleks. Similarly, even though Harriet Harman, Prime Minister of Great Britain was meant to herald in a new Golden Age for Britain and yet the Doctor had no hesitation in destroying her career. Even though her career was well-documented as doing such a thing. You'd have thought that would merit being a fixed point as it would have a serious impact on earth's politics etcetera etcetera, but it's not.

What I'm trying to say is that while I don't understand what makes a point fixed - as sometimes observation and recording the event doesn't count - I will accept that the book became fixed because the events became a circular paradox. Also I liked the idea of a book literally dictating their actions even though they tried not to make it happen.

The Liberty Angel was a waste and shouldn't have been done full stop. Let's all leave it at that.

What worries me is that strange interpretation of females this season. River has to break her wrist to get free. Fine. But the way she reacts is reminiscent of an abuse/assault victim: hide the hurt that happened so no one notices, and the excuse for not seeking aid was 'not to hurt him'. Her husband. And she said this to her mother that it was best not to make him sad or hurt him, and that leaving would hurt him. The writing and the wording itself is unsettling. I sincerely doubt that Moffat intended to make anyone feel like this reminded them of an assault/abusive situation, but well . . .

This is another episode this half-season that made me feel a uncomfortable due to the way a female character spoke, acted, reacted or was treated. In fact, if I was entirely honest, every episode except 'The Power of Three' so far has had some uncomfortable moments for me as a female, and this makes two episodes by Moffat. I know there are females on staff, can't you ask one or two of them to attend script readings and whatnot? Just to avoid unfortunate implications like that?

The direction and sets were superb, as was the effort put in by all the actors involved, and I liked how Amy developed from being self-centred to truly loving Rory but it's . . . if I can't have him I'd rather die? As if she has no life without Rory? Now, Rory definitely did the same thing, but he knew that as long as he made it those two thousand years he would meet Amy again. Here Amy's gambling on a chance.

Eh, she did it in 'The Girl Who Waited', I think I'm overthinking it a bit, and if I call her out on this I'd have to for Rory, and I love that Rory loves Amy so much he did it. Also, he killed himself to create a paradox to undo time.

I liked it. Quite a lot in spit of its flaws. It was a rather good episode, especially if one remembers this is a mid-season episode, not a finale, and that the preceding episode was lacklustre.

Shame about the advertising and the heavy foreshadowing. I'm glad I remained unspoiled as to the death of the Ponds, but it was fairly obvious from the beginning of the episode. I was just grasping for straws.

'P.S.' (season 7a, ep. 5 epilogue)

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This is an 'unshot scene', written by Chris Chibnall. And so I already know that it's going to be something special because you seldom ever see such things released and made canon.

Also, this is still in storyboard form meaning the music must carry this to make it work.

Oh God. It's like 'Blink' again. The letter from the past to Rory's dad to tell him of their life in the past and that they would never come home again. I'm already tearing up.

And Rory voice over. "[... W]e are happy. [...] You are the best dad in the world [...] I'm sorry [...T]he man who delivered the letter, be nice to him, because he's your grandson."

Adopted in 1946: Anthony Brian Williams.

They hug.

No scream this time, just quiet piano music ending in silence.

Preview: No preview this time.

Best Moment: ALL OF IT. Oh I cried and they adopted and had a family and were happy, and how Rory tells Brian how much he appreciates his father and everything they ever did.

Worst Moment: None.

Best Actor: Rory. Just a voice over and you made me weep Arthur Darvill.

Worst Actor: None.

Best Special Effect: None.

Worst Special Effect: None.

Most Punchable Character: None.

Death Count: None.

Kink of the Episode: None.

Was Not Expecting: All of it.

Overall thoughts?
WHY WAS THIS NOT FILMED?! The music was beautiful, and the emotion in the words and music enough was alone to make me cry, imagine what it would have been like with actual actors!

[CurlyKitGirl]

Because I did too many things at once, here's all the Christmas ones in one easy post!

'The Great Detective' (2012 Children in Need Doctor Who minisode prequel)

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Confession time: I'm watching this after 'The Snowmen' because I barely finished writing up P.S. in time to watch 'The Snowmen'. So the title 9aside from referencing the obvious) references the fact that Walter remarked that Conan Doyle actually was a literary agent basing all his stories on adventures that actually happened, but changing a few details to make them more palatable to the public. That said, the Doctor dresses as Sherlock Holmes in the episode even though he's fake and based on Mme. Vastra and Jenny which all gets a bit topsy turvy.

Would it be stating the very obvious if I said I liked Victorian London? Chances are this is probably Cardiff, but I really like Victorian London and how it looks. 'Course nearly everywhere in the UK can double as Victorian [place], but still. Also, it's snowing. Quelle suprise.

Ooh, a narrator talking about "the Great Detective". And it seems like Mma. Vastra, the "lizard-woman of Paternoster Row, and her extraordinary adventures, her beautiful assistant Jenny Flint, and their mysterious henchman Strax, whose countenance was too abominable to be photographed." So lizard-woman: perfectly fine; ugly-cute potato: no way? And it seems widely known that Mme. Vastra isn't human. Doesn't anyone consider that a bit odd? No?

So Our Girls (finally) are chatting, and then the Doctor pops up out of the shadows. The unofficial fourth member of the gang. Mme. Vastra is clearly grasping for straws, she just wants the Doctor to socialise.

Aaand, Jenny. That giant drill? That sounds like a Classic episode. I know the Daleks drilled to the centre of the earth once, but they didn't want to split it in half.

S: "I've declared war on the Moon!" Oh wait. Strax was dead last time I saw him. How did I forget to point that out in 'The Snowman'? Well, he's back now anyway. "For too long the Moon has unmonitored and unsuspected in the sky. It has gained a tactical advantage!"

J: "There's no one living there!"

S: "Then it is clearly time to act. They won't suspect a thing!"

J: "Who won't suspect a thing?"

S: "Moonites."

I think he means it too. Sadly, not even the threat of Moonites is enough to stir the Doctor from his dark and grim brooding and grieving in the shadows, 'I mourn alone', and he stalks off into the shadows like a Scrooge. Oh, he doesn't do adventures any more.

Strax blames this on the moon.

No scream out!

Preview: No preview this time.

Best Moment: Strax's ever-so-serious Moon diatribe.

Worst Moment: It ended?

Best Actor: The Doctor does brooding well, but Strax.

Worst Actor: Jenny. her accent seems off here for some reason. And at certain angles it looked like she had pointy ears and that distracted me.

Best Special Effect: Mme. Vastra.

Worst Special Effect: None.

Most Punchable Character: None. Everyone was nice and happy and stuff.

Death Count: Also none! Unless you count the Doctor's sense of adventure. And socialisation.

Kink of the Episode: None.

Was Not Expecting: Well, any of it really, but I suppose the narrator was quite out-of-the-blue.

Overall thoughts?
Nice bit of fun that foreshadows the Doctor's new attitude and the upcoming adventure (it's snowing), and three ensemble dark horses came back and are clearly off having their own adventures.
Methinks these little titbits could be testing the waters for launching a new spinoff. So really, there's not much substance to this, it's flavour, but good flavour.

'Vastra Investigates' (minisode prequel to 'The Snowmen')

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By Steven Moffat.
So it's Lestrade? I'm assuming so given they call him Inspector, and he doesn't look like a Gregson. And he thinks Strax is Turkish. Oh racism and limited world views, how you are missed.

Yes, yes, funny little reference combining typical Holmesian things (identical twins) with typical Doctor Who things - I saw the Sutekh reference there mate.

Oh, the London Underground is mentioned again? And Jenny/Mme. Vastra is officially canon. Lestrade is taking it rather well. "Good Lord. Good Lord."

Jenny thinks the Doctor is sulking, but Mme. Vastra basically says an achey breaky heart is a painful thing to bear, and to let him grieve. Then it snows, but there aren't any clouds.

Scream out!

Preview: No preview this time.

Best Moment: Well, all of it was a moment. I suppose I liked the blasé reveal about Our Girls origins and sexual preferences because to poor Lestrade it was quite a shock. And he took it well, in fact, given the evidence of the next episode, he doesn't really care that homosexuality was an imprisonable offence.

Worst Moment: None.

Best Actor: None.

Worst Actor: None.

Best Special Effect: Mme. Vastra.

Worst Special Effect: None.

Most Punchable Character: None.

Death Count: None.

Kink of the Episode: None.

Was Not Expecting: Unexpected racism/provincialism (but story-appropriate)

Overall thoughts?
A very short sweet set up that sets the scene and, again, foreshadows the unnaturalness of snow in London at Christmas. Has it ever just been normal snow over London in these Christmas specials?

It does however, make me wish there was an actual Paternoster Investigations because this setup is fantastic. Oh, and I liked Mme. Vastra's back story.

'The Snowmen' (2012 Christmas Special)

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Very pretty snow in space (if implausible) and now it's Victorian England and Walter is building a snowman. W: "I don't want to talk to [the other children] they're silly."

Snowman: "They're silly. Don't talk to them. They're silly. You don't need anyone else. I can help you."

W: "How?" And fifty years later he has an army of people colelcting snow from an army of snowmen. Okay? And a giant snowglobe whose voice is Gandalf?!?!

And Walter . . . calls the snowmen visistors, and is fine with executing the people who helped him collect the food. He . . . killer snowmen. W: 2I said I'd feed you. I didn't say who to."#


And now: The Rose and Crown. A saucy tavern wench in red. Oswin to be precise. And she asks the Doctor who built the magically appearing snowman with evil teeth and eyes.

D: "Maybe [the snow] can rememeber how to make snowmen." And he's still wearing Amy's glasses. Then refuses to talk with Oswin, and walks off. Still grieving. Irked by this she chases after him.

D: "Those days are over."

Hello Mme. vastra! And Oswin caught up with the Doctor and asks, again, "Doctor who?"

Oh. I don't know if I like the new title.

Now Walkter's talking about someone dying in a pond, "but it is growing." And it will belong to him with it is ready.

JENNY AND MME. VASTRA. And the Veiled Detective is the Great Detective. "And her suspiciously intimate companion."

They're married by the way. LOVE.

The snow is memory snow. "V: "Snow that learns."

W: "I think Winter is coming." And then I think Game of Thrones and decide that I will put my Christmas money towards buying the show. Look, it's a very distracting saying nowadays.

AND STRAX!

D: "When you find something brand new in the world, something you've never seen before, what's the next thing you look for?"

S: "A grenade!"

Laser monkeys. Dude. Strax. Love. S: "Sir. I am opposed to your current apathy." Hey, don't call Strax a potato dwarf! And you know something's wrong when a Sontaran (who you yourself just called psychotic) is asking you to be reasonable.

And Strax still can't tell the difference between boys and girls. "Two genders is a bit more than he can count."

Strax I love you. Also, he keeps getting affected by the neuraliser (memory worm) because he forgets the shades (gauntlets). Oswin refuses to leave and then she makes a snowman.

With her mind. Repeatedly. And they grow teeth.

D: "[...] Picture them melting. Picture them melting!" Ingenious. Also, even when he's being apathetic and grieving and helps her. Just before ordering her to forget about him, the encounter and so on.

The Doctor can whistle. Round yon virgin mother and child

The Doctor has an invisiTARDIS again. Shame Oswin followed him and saw it happen. Did I mention I love the choral music in the background? And Oswin's dress. And boots. And the Doctor's outfit.

I think I should just say I like all the clothes here, and the TARDIS effect is rather good indeed.

It's not an invisi-TARDIS. It's an invisible staircase. A very tall one. It goes above the clouds. And there's the TARDIS (visible version) And -

no -

She's literally walking in the air! Obligatory The Snowman reference complete. Then she knocks and runs. On the TARDIS floating in mid-air. And the Doctor answers. Cue the usual sneaking around the TARDIS avoiding each other thing, then Oswin legs it. And left behind her . . .scarf? Which the Doctor then finds and sniffs. That bit's a bit creepy.

And now Gandalf sounds like Death. "Tomorrow the snow will fall and conquer mankind. She is coming." A snowchild?

Oh yeah. Oswin's a governess in this episode. And hello stripping. Ugh, Modesty cut away scene. And now she's Mary Poppins. In blue and green. And a small bustle.

Okay, Francesca's having nightmares, so Franny's the snowchild person. She's also doing the Mary Popins thing of advising the father to talk to his children.

Also: Digby. Seriously.

Ah, children.

F: "I did seven drawings!"

D: "And saw a dead cow." That's kids for you. Oh. The dead governess in the pond is the . . . Snow Queen? And no one got her out of the ice? D: "I hated her. She was cross all the time." And in Franny's dreams she's waiting to come back.

Cue audio flashback. Telepathic ice is going to ressurect an abusive governess to . . . conquer earth? (And as an aside, Oswin's faking being posh)

S: "Do not attempt to escape or you will be obliterated! May I take your coat?" I want a Sontaran butler. He works for Mme. Vastra who pulls a Sherlock scan. Ish. Oswin has to restrict herself to one-word answers, and is bitter because "he prefers isolation" to helping people.

Why does a Silurian have eyelashes?

I like this exchange and wish to talk more. Stupid liveblog.

Mme. Vastra will convey her message, if she can convey it in one word. I bet it's 'children'. No. It's "Pond".

Wut.

V: "Strax has already gone out to start investigating." Sorry, Dr. Simian - like monkey?

Sorry what. The Doctor's just rocked up to Walter dressed as the stereotypical Sherlock Holmes and failed the Sherlock scan perfectly (and that music sounded familiar . . . Sherlock). Then he beats the snowglobe with a walking cane.

G: "You are not of this world."

D: "Takes one to snow one." And he knows it's bad. Then technoTreknobabble saying fake alien snow. And calls Gandalf!snowglobe Moriarty. And the snow is his army. An army of ice people.

And where does one find a perfect example of human DNA in ice? Darkover House where the governess froze to death in a pond.

S: "Mme. Vastra wondered if you were needing any grenades."

D: "Grenades?"

S: "She might have said help."

He rambles about not needing to help a girl because she smiles, "Who do you think I am?"

S: "Sherlock Holmes." Marvellous! And then he tells Strax not to be clever and stuff and he still calls the Doctor Mr. Holmes.

Also, the Docot'r in such denial about wanting to help people. He wants to say no, but his hand says he'll be up in five minutes.

Oswin tells "absolutely true stories" such as how she invented fish and was born behind the clockface of Big Ben. I love Oswin.

Also, the footsteps that were the Doctor weren't. It's the abusive bitch of a governess. In ice. And she can't make the woman melt.

So the Doctor - hiding in a Punch and Judy theatre sonics the snow lady into exploding. I'm just waiting for the compulsory Dickens reference.

Also, the Doctor's seen himself sans glasses, but with bow tie. Coming back from grieving. D: "An old habit."

O: "It's cooler."

D: "It is isn't it? Bow ties are very cool." O: "I was talking about the room." She learned not to melt.

D: "It okay1! I am your governesses gentleman fiend and we have been upstairs. Kissing!"

The maid screams.

V: "Good evening. I am a lizard woman from the dawn of time, and this is my wife."

More screaming.

S: "Remain calm you are under attack! [I missed the rest." More screaming and fainting. And meanwhile the father's just given and and can only think "gentleman friend".

D: "If the snow gets hold of that creature on the stairs it will learn. It will build an army of ice. And it will be the last day of humanity on earth." He tells people to stay in the stufy, so Oswin leaves.

Ugh. Oswin just kissed the Doctor. Don't like it. He did blush though. Still don't like it.

The Doctor wants to fight people off with a brolly (also five minute deadline). And the Doctor really does do the hand holding.

Also innuendo about taking clothes off. And good grief, Oswin can talk a lot. And faster than the Doctor.

Hey, the Doctor's staircase is "taller on the inside" - like the tower at Bugarup University.

Oh. Oh I lie the TARDIS interior. Is that Gallifreyan circle writing on the console. D: "Go on, say it. Most people do."

Oooh, new interpretation of Eleven's theme.

O: "It's smaller on the outside." He says that's a new thing to say, but I don't think it is. Maybe new to him.

O: "Is there a kitchen. [...] I don't know why I asked that; I like making souffles." Oswin is Clara. And the Doctor took the umbrella so she could follow if she wanted. And then he gives her a key.

O: "Don't know why I'm crying."

D: "I do. Remember this. All of this. Because this is the day. This is the day everything begins!" And then irony. The ice lady drags Oswin out the TARDIS and off the edge of the cloud. And dies.

Father: "We have to get her inside! She's hurt!"

V: "She's dead." Then the TARDIS vworps around her body in order to bring her in. And now she's alive, but seriously injured. Because Strax is a nurse from space.

So the Doctor is back in the TARDIS and with it comes dark and brooding background music and noises. Guilt y'know. And then things get vaguely romantic, or possibly just sweet, and he asks "[W]ill you come away with me?" Providing all goes well.

And here comes triumphant and dramatic music, complete with - that lunchbox has the London Underground on it - choral tones.

Mme. Vastra asks if he is saving the world in order to save her. He says maybe.

But that's boring. The snow is "a parasite feeding on the loneliness of a child and the sickness of an old man", it only ever echoed the mind of Walter.

And the memory worm comes back to suck all of those thoughts out of Walter, and in doing so kills the parasite. Well actually, "Did you really think it would be so easy?" The snow is back and the snowmen are growing.

D: "But you were just Dr. Simian and you outlived him."

G: "The dreamer outlives the dream. Once I was the puppet, now I am the puppeteer! I fill him now." Snerk. And thus reanimiated Walter beats Mme. Vastra and tries to freeze the Doctor from the outside in "Do you feel it? Winter is coming. Winter is coming!"

Oswin cries. There's a corny shot of a hungry snowflake making a nasty face, then the snow turns to rain. "It's mirrored something so strong it's drowing everything else. There was a critical mass of snow at the house. If something happened there. . . "

It is literally raining tears. D: "A whole family crying on Christmas Eve" is strong enough to beat the snow. Oswin is drying see. Only moments left.

And then, "Run. Run you clever boy. And remember." Isn't that what she said to the Doctor when she was Oswin?

The Great Intelligence Institute. It rings a bell for the Doctor. Clara. Oswin. Oswald. D: "It was Souffle Girl again [...] It was her! The same woman! Twice! Something impossible's happening." So off he goes to find her.

This is pretty cool actually. The next half of the season is The Hunt For the Souffle Girl.

Scream out!

Preview: Monks, crashing planes, more Strax and Mme. Vastra and Cybermen and Oswin and "[Oswin's] not possible". Also Seven of Nine ripoff with the makeup?

Best Moment: Where it turns out that Gandalf!globe was actually a figment of his imagination inasmuch as it meant that all the plans and ideas were Walter's. At least to begin with. I like that idea and makes the little scene in the beginning even creepier. The boy is literally talking to himself, and because of it there's no way to rationalise or tone down the ideas.
Everything is perfect and should be just that way.

It's like having an imaginary friend who encourages you to murder people. Mostly because that's exactly what it is, and where a child can argue their friend into not doing something (or vice versa), giving voice to their own conscience, all they can do is egg one another on because there's no way to tell what is right and what isn't.

Worst Moment: NO KISS! We are not having another Rose/Martha. Especially as the Doctor is technically now married. I don't even care that I don't like the idea of a married Doctor; there will never be Oswin/Doctor. EVER. EVER. EVER.

Best Actor: I want to say Strax because everything he said made me smile, but really, it's the Doctor, with Richard E. Grant and Jenna-Louise Coleman coming a close second. Matt Smith does emotional torque very well, swinging between grieving and his normal effervescent self very well as he tries to restrain himself from once again hoping and believing and having adventures. Richard E. Grant does a chilling villain (I make no excuses) and reanimated puppet!self very well and, in spite of her Cockney accent I quite like Oswin.

Although in truth I find Clara!Oswin a bit grating, but that was only the scene on the rooftop (and the kiss), esewhere she was very enjoyable and it was nice seeing little flashes of Souffle1Oswin through Clara!Oswin. And I liked her as a governess very much too.

Worst Actor: I don't like children. It's Digby.

Best Special Effect: There is a TARDIS on a cloud I'd like to go there and visit, Aren't any floors for me to sleep, not in my TARDIS on a cloud.

Worst Special Effect: The snowmen look corny and the Gandalf!globe looked half-done. Still nice, because it's an obvious makeshift whatsit, but it wasn't very good.

Most Punchable Character: Oswin for the rooftop scene, but otherwise, I didn't really want to punch anyone. Maybe stick Digdy in the corner for half an hour and make Walter go socialise with children, but no punching.

Does an ice facsimile of an abusive governess count? If so then her.

Death Count: About a dozen workers.

Kink of the Episode: Period clothing. And Jenna-Louise Coleman makes a bustle look good.

Was Not Expecting: Well, the end reveal that Clara!Oswin actually is Souffle!Oswin. I think it would be an interesting arching plot to the rest of the season as Jenna-Louise Coleman will basically have to be the Doctor and show different 'regenerations' each time she appears in rapid succession while maintaining core characteristics. I hope she has the versatility to do so. It also means I can't really judge her as a character because she's an echo of some sort and just as echoes are distorted, each one will be different compared to the others. Hopefully.

Oh, and I wasn't expecting Gandalf/Magneto either.

Overall thoughts?
Word of mum says the London Underground was involved in a couple of really early serials in the time of the First or Second Doctor. So this is a callback to forty five plus years ago, although in-series the events will happen some sixty years in Mme. Vastra's future, but happened over five hundred years in the Doctor's personal past. Complicated.

I really liked the casting gag with Richard E. Grant. As I mentioned earlier this month: Richard E. Grant has acted alongside Paul McGann and was the Doctor in 'The Scream of the Shalka' where he played AU!Nine/Ten.

And now that both Gandalf and Dubledore have been on Doctor Who I'm going to wait for Saruman and Voldemort to make their appearance. Or possibly Prof. X.

I enjoyed this episode quite a lot, it had a bit more substance to it than previous Christmas specials and definitely plays into the overall season by laying out Oswin's mysterious duplication/echo/whatever in the final few minutes of the episode and showing how Eleven copes with losing his only two constant Companions: poorly.

I felt it was tastefully done, as it dragged him out of the emotional mire he'd become stuck in by giving him a mystery or two - how did Oswin know to say Pond to interest him? And what are these snowmen? I think the moment he left off the glasses and stuck his bow tie on shows that his grieving through this episode and the prequels was more a refusal to move on, rather than an inability to, and this episode served to revitalise him.

More, he know has a reason and purpose to go travelling beyond merely 'to see it all' or 'running', he's going to find Oswin and figure out why she exists in at least three diferrent times (and maybe places) and how she can unconsciously echo her Souffle!self.

The idea of the snow only echoing the thinker, at least until it became powerful enough to act on its accord was innovative, but I do wish they'd left it as that so as to show that human darkness and voluntary isolation was the cause of everything; it would have tied into the Doctor's own darker moods and how when he is in one he lashes out at people, and does things that harm others. Or kills when he ordinarily may not have. It would even make the snow a neutral agent, as it can do good or bad depending on the power of the thinker's thoughts.

But alas. Here there be monsters, and they must be evil.

The Paternoster Trio didn't have as big a part as I was hoping, but they were still colourful characters who lightened up the events. While I do admit to some concern about Oswin's existence as a search quest, and even potential love interest, I felt she was very well done as someone who was hiding her true nature (a la her previous episode), hinting at her part in the show, and she was intrepid and interesting. I actually felt sad at her death and most definintely wasn't expecting it as she was touted as the next Companion, not a one-off. Oddly, she's both, a constant Companion, but each character could be a one-off depending on how many Oswins we meet.

That rain bit was cheesy too.

So this is one of the better Christmas Specials. Better than 'The Christmas Invasion' and 'The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe' definitely, and I've not seen any of the others to comment on. Except for 'The Christmas Carol' which I also enjoyed.

Which was also a costume drama set in Victoriana starring famous knighted actors and other very talented people.

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and to celebrate Christmas Day, Strax will sing us some carols.

[Mercenary Pen]

Overall thoughts?
Word of mum says the London Underground was involved in a couple of really early serials in the time of the First or Second Doctor. So this is a callback to forty five plus years ago

I'm told this is specifically a call back to the Patrick Troughton stories The Abominable Snowmen and The Web of Fear which featured the Yeti- I'm told at least one of these stories no longer exists...

[Michaeler]

The novelisations of these stories still exist. Essentially, the Great Intelligence decided that the London Underground was a good place to base itself to use yetis to take over England. This episode suggests it got the idea from the Doctor.

[Eldan]

Well, well. Best Who I've seen in years? I'd quite like to say so. First half? Utterly, utterly amazing. Cloud staircase? Wonderful. Most beautiful TV I've seen this year. Didn't mind Smith in this one, Tennant wouldn't have fit in here. Solution was silly and didn't make sense, otherwise great.

[Aotrs Commander]

Christmas Special spoilers

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I'm really, really psyked they went where I was really hoping they would with Clara. They did a really good job of hiding and playing it off the way they did, it was just convincing enough until Clara mentioned souffle I believed them! Really excited now!

The Sontaran guy (Strax, was it?) might win Best Companion Ever award, just on the basis of that episode alone. He was priceless. (My Uncle kept pointing out the similarities between him and me... I'll take that comparison, actually...!)

[ReluctantReaper]

Winter is coming

[Thufir]

'The Muppets Take Manhattan' (season 7a, ep. 5)

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Today I want to say this: New York is the 'city that never sleeps'! The Angels move when someone's not looking at them. The Statue of Liberty is one of the most famous landmarks in the world, I'm pretty sure there's slways someone looking at it. And even if it wasn't looked at twenty-four seven, I think people would notice if a one hundred and fifty foot statue suddenly moved! Also: can't people go inside it? And aren't there photographs of it being built in situ? So when would it have become an Angel? It's not just random statuary which actually can show up out of the blue and go relatively unremarked.

...yeah. It's pretty stupid.

Angels are spatial transporters too? Super powers out your arse much?

They already were, back in Blink, because Cathy ended up in Hull. The only new thing is they can do the two things separately from each other.

R: "Never let him see the damage. And never, ever, let him see you leave[?] age. He doesn't like endings."

IIRC, the word you were unsure of was 'age'.

"Please, 'cause I am really scared."

well. I'm crying now.

Me too. Crying again just reading this because Rory.

What worries me is that strange interpretation of females this season. River has to break her wrist to get free. Fine. But the way she reacts is reminiscent of an abuse/assault victim: hide the hurt that happened so no one notices, and the excuse for not seeking aid was 'not to hurt him'. Her husband. And she said this to her mother that it was best not to make him sad or hurt him, and that leaving would hurt him. The writing and the wording itself is unsettling. I sincerely doubt that Moffat intended to make anyone feel like this reminded them of an assault/abusive situation, but well . . .

I'm not sure. I mean, when you think about it, even once they've grown into it somewhat, the Doctor/River relationship is still pretty messed up. River's whole life has revolved around the Doctor, making her obsessed with him. From being brainwashed to kill him, to him causing her to become a better person before leaving so she felt she had to search for him, to her marrying him and pretending she murdered him and spending years in prison as a result, staying despite the fact she could break out any time you want... abuse victim is certainly not baseless as a comparison. Except for the Doctor isn't really an abuser so much as, as she makes the point, a child. Well, the combination of a child who can't deal well with loss and an old man who's experienced too much of it already.
And of course the whole thing is fed from the other side by the fact the Doctor has already seen River die and probably doesn't want to be reminded of the fact.

Regardless, your point is well made.

Shame about the advertising and the heavy foreshadowing. I'm glad I remained unspoiled as to the death of the Ponds, but it was fairly obvious from the beginning of the episode. I was just grasping for straws.

I have mixed feelings about it. I mean, Who under Moffat is much better at keeping secrets, so where something is revealed I have to assume it was deliberate, and the whole setup of Amy and Rory's departure was such as to make it seem inevitable so we'd all go mad with the anticipation of it.

And, on to Christmas.

'The Great Detective' (2012 Children in Need Doctor Who minisode prequel)

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And it seems widely known that Mme. Vastra isn't human. Doesn't anyone consider that a bit odd? No?

Well, I'd imagine people find it somewhat unsettling, but one does not point out a lady's shortcomings. After all, we can't help how we're made. It just strikes me as a fairly Victorian attitude. It doesn't matter if she's a human woman, because regardless she is a lady.

'The Snowmen' (2012 Christmas Special)

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Hey, don't call Strax a potato dwarf! And you know something's wrong when a Sontaran (who you yourself just called psychotic) is asking you to be reasonable.

You also know something's wrong when the Doctor is deliberately insulting his friends like that (Regardless of said friend being a Sontaran).

And hello stripping. Ugh, Modesty cut away scene.

You were hoping to see the full sequence of her changing?

Sorry what. The Doctor's just rocked up to Walter dressed as the stereotypical Sherlock Holmes and failed the Sherlock scan perfectly (and that music sounded familiar . . . Sherlock).

Extra funny thinking about it because apparently Matt Smith auditioned to be Watson on Sherlock. They didn't think it would work because he was too quirky and it would've been more like having two Sherlocks.

Oswin tells "absolutely true stories" such as how she invented fish and was born behind the clockface of Big Ben. I love Oswin.

Yep. Super-governess. Much better than Mary Poppins as far as I'm concerned.

D: "It okay1! I am your governesses gentleman friend and we have been upstairs. Kissing!"

Oh, that's what the rest of that line was. I was laughing too much after 'gentleman friend' to hear the subsequent words.

Mme. Vastra asks if he is saving the world in order to save her. He says maybe.

And I like that even at this point, where he's obviously back out of retirement and saving the world again, he's still got a bit of that resentment he was carrying around earlier - he's saving the world for Clara rather than for the world itself, and he feels that the universe owes him this.

Best Moment: Where it turns out that Gandalf!globe was actually a figment of his imagination inasmuch as it meant that all the plans and ideas were Walter's. At least to begin with. I like that idea and makes the little scene in the beginning even creepier. The boy is literally talking to himself, and because of it there's no way to rationalise or tone down the ideas.
Everything is perfect and should be just that way.

Yeah, I loved that. Especially because in that initial scene, the snow was mostly just repeating what he said to it, so I already felt like it was just echoing him, so it was neat to see I was actually right.
Also it was a nice touch when the voice changed back to young Walter.

Worst Moment: NO KISS! We are not having another Rose/Martha. Especially as the Doctor is technically now married. I don't even care that I don't like the idea of a married Doctor; there will never be Oswin/Doctor. EVER. EVER. EVER.

Eh. It didn't seem to me like that's going to become a thing in the same way as Rose/Martha. And in some ways I might prefer Doctor/Clara to Doctor/River, depending on my mood. It did seem a bit randomly thrown in though.

Best Special Effect: There is a TARDIS on a cloud I'd like to go there and visit, Aren't any floors for me to sleep, not in my TARDIS on a cloud.

The idea of the snow only echoing the thinker, at least until it became powerful enough to act on its accord was innovative, but I do wish they'd left it as that so as to show that human darkness and voluntary isolation was the cause of everything; it would have tied into the Doctor's own darker moods and how when he is in one he lashes out at people, and does things that harm others. Or kills when he ordinarily may not have. It would even make the snow a neutral agent, as it can do good or bad depending on the power of the thinker's thoughts.

But alas. Here there be monsters, and they must be evil.

I kind of feel like it was that, even with the bit at the end. The dream outlived the dreamer, but it was still the same dream. Walter made the snow evil over the course of 50 years, and that just became sufficiently ingrained that it stayed that way even after his memories went.
Maybe.

[QUOTE=CurlyKitGirl;14430279]I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and to celebrate Christmas Day, Strax will sing us some carols.

OH MY GODDESS THIS IS THE BEST THING.

[Giggling Ghast]

I confess, I've liked most of the Doctor Who Christmas specials, but this one left me with mixed feelings. It was quite funny and I like this new girl Oswin Oswald - especially how they've implied that there are multiple versions of her throughout time, since that presents an interesting little mystery.

But as for the villain … the Snow was just blah. I'm not entirely certain what the hell it was doing or how it was defeated. I get that it needed to study humans to create an army, but why was it the puppet to this little boy? Yes, the snow reflects emotions and the children were awfully sad for their dead governess, but … why was it affected by this one particular family and no other? And what exactly happened to it at the end? I just don't get it.

Still, I think the special was worth it alone for the line "Hello, I'm a lizardwoman from the dawn of time and this is my wife."

[Kato]

*sneaks in* Everything Christmas-y still spoilered? Good.

And in general, I love Doctor Who for the character moments, yes, the plots are sometimes very good, there are great and marvellous spectacles, but it's the small moments that make this show for me.They even redeem average and sort-of-bad episodes for me. Like in 'The Invasion' where there are a lot of slow moments, but the characters fill it nicely.

Yeah, the same thing holds true for a lot of things I enjoy. Not that they often have crappy plots but what I most enjoy about about any show I can think of are the little bits, especially character interactions.

That's a shame darling.

... I guess I'm reading too much into this but I'll just take this as a nice, little Christmas treat.

But don't worry, it'll be up online somewhere by the end of the day. And this thread isn't going anywhere, so we await your return.

Well, obviously I can't stay away from the thread for long anyway...
I know it will be up but I still can't watch it. My friend would gut me if I watched Who without her and she still can't get around to it for two more days or so. Even if I give her the Fez I got her for Christmas. (It's pretty poorly hand-made but she likes that craft-y self-made stuff so I guess she'll like it. But I digress....)


Last notes on PoT

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I watching it intermittently on a Freeview channel over here, it's still in the early seasons, which I've mostly forgotten and it still holds some of its charm. Pardon my pun.

There's mostly two things I recall from Charmed:
1) It's easy to keep a teenage boys attention with three attractive female leads. (Even more so when one of them is Alyssa Milano)
2) I really liked the Cole Character and mostly hated how his story line ended.
( 3) The Opening was pretty cool, yeah)

Granted, it's a pretty standard scenario, but the way the cubes are almost footnotes to part of the story evokes Reaper Man, and I watched/read Hogfather not a week ago. And well (spoilers):

Waaah, don't just start quoeting Pratchett. It gets me all tingly and goosegumps-y. And this is one of the strongest quotes. You can't just throw it around like it's nothing

And this is kind of why I wished it was possible for Terry Pratchett to write (or assist in writing) an episode or Doctor Who. Standard ideas, but in a new way.

You have no idea how much I'd love that. Then again, I'm not sure whether we will eve again have anything that's on Pratchett's peak level of writing, in Who or in Discworld
But we're not here to praise Pratchett, we all know how great he is.

'The Muppets Take Manhattan' (season 7a, ep. 5)

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New York is the 'city that never sleeps'! The Angels move when someone's not looking at them. The Statue of Liberty is one of the most famous landmarks in the world, I'm pretty sure there's slways someone looking at it. And even if it wasn't looked at twenty-four seven, I think people would notice if a one hundred and fifty foot statue suddenly moved! Also: can't people go inside it? And aren't there photographs of it being built in situ? So when would it have become an Angel? It's not just random statuary which actually can show up out of the blue and go relatively unremarked.

Yeah, even with the 1920s setting and an Angel's speed Liberty Angel shatters suspension of disbelieve as easily as a fake bottle in a western movie. They should have just skipped that but I guess temptation was too big.

D: "Sorry Rory. You just died." Again.

Rory Williams, Doctor Who's Kenny McCormick... Well, it's (most probably) the last time he will have died.

Was Not Expecting: I knew they were leaving but I thought they'd just leave. Also it was surprisingly meta.

Well, you'll have to give it to Moffat... first you think their paradox plan might fail, then you think "yay, they are just going to leave and stay at home" and then BAM! That's probably why it worked so well(?)

What I'm trying to say is that while I don't understand what makes a point fixed - as sometimes observation and recording the event doesn't count - I will accept that the book became fixed because the events became a circular paradox. Also I liked the idea of a book literally dictating their actions even though they tried not to make it happen.

Don't worry, I don't think anyone including the writers can tell you what a fixed point is. Mostly it is "what makes a good plot" and I can live with that in a show with a time travelling, regenerating alien who goes around kidnapping young girls. (Not exclusively but surprisingly often)


I really have to admit I can't quite see the "abused wife" thing with River... I'm not even entirely sure if I could follow you. While, yes, the "we should not talk about" thing is related and terrible it was pretty obvious that the situation has nothing to do with it but merely about not making him worry because...? The Doctor is a child or whatever... Well, she loves him too much to have him worry? I don't know.
At least I didn't get the "abused wife" feeling there. I'm sorry if it ruined the scene for you.

Eh, she did it in 'The Girl Who Waited', I think I'm overthinking it a bit, and if I call her out on this I'd have to for Rory, and I love that Rory loves Amy so much he did it. Also, he killed himself to create a paradox to undo time.

Yeah, while I'm always a bit aversed when it comes to the really cheesy love stories if you accept it for Amy and Rory it really is one of my favourite ones. What the two of them did for each other in Pandorica opens or Girl Who Waited or other stories just counts for a lot. I'm perfectly willing to accept what happened there.

'P.S.' (season 7a, ep. 5 epilogue) [...]
WHY WAS THIS NOT FILMED?! The music was beautiful, and the emotion in the words and music enough was alone to make me cry, imagine what it would have been like with actual actors!

Really? I think it worked perfectly well like that. Maybe because with actual actors it might have actually shattered my heart and I'm not quite willing to have that done to me quite yet. The only regret I have about it is that a few people quite possibly missed it because it was not aired.

[Calemyr]

One thing I really liked about the Christmas episode:

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Jenna maintains her "Total, Screaming Genius (And Just A Little Bit Sexy)" cred, but much of it is really rather subtle. Sure, there's the rooftop scene (and the extension into the TARDIS), where she blatantly works out the Doctor's schemes without him saying much of anything. The real moment of truth, however, was the memory worm.

When Strax is under the cart looking for the worm, the Doctor notes that Clara still isn't running. Why? Because she knows what's about to happen and wouldn't miss it for anything. She spotted the gauntlets before any of it happened, identified them for what they were despite the alien hand shape, and predicted how events would go and how funny they would be. And she did this all before the Doctor even realized she still wasn't running.

I also thought it was a nice touch that Strax was the one charged with taking care of the injured woman. They never outright remind the audience of it, but Strax IS a trained nurse, after all.

I wonder what "friend" was responsible for Strax's resurrection? Did he take Strax's body to the Bad Wolf station during the Dalek invasion? Just sneak in, leave the body in a closet, come back after the fireworks, and pick up the Sontaran after Godmode Rose starts fixing people?

I suppose I can see why he wouldn't turn to his "friend" when other people died. Everyone dies around the Doctor, but Strax is something special. His time as a nurse has made him more than a Sontaran, an interchangeable clone, it's made him a person. Someone that can be counted on as an ally rather than an enemy. It's all nicely handled, and Strax is freaking hilarious.

[dps]

I'm told this is specifically a call back to the Patrick Troughton stories The Abominable Snowmen and The Web of Fear which featured the Yeti- I'm told at least one of these stories no longer exists...

The Web of Fear was a very important episode in the show's history--it was the first appearance of the Brigadier (though at that point, he was still a colonel).

As for the Christmas special,

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Strax was the best thing about it, and that's not a backhanded compliment, 'cause overall I liked the episode quite a bit. The plot was weak--especially the resolution--and it didn't have a great villian, but the acting was great (gotta disagree with Sunken Valley about Digby--I thought even the child actors did a good job) and the dialogue was outstanding.

There's about a hundred other things I'd like to say about the episode, but I'm still organizing my thoughts

[Calemyr]

One other thought on the Christmas episode:

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The kid's last name was Simian? No wonder he grew to hate his peers. The field days they must have had with that name.

[Mercenary Pen]

One other thought on the Christmas episode:

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The kid's last name was Simian? No wonder he grew to hate his peers. The field days they must have had with that name.

I think it was actually Simeon- which is a proper biblical name (and thus all the rage in the upper strata of Victorian society)

[CurlyKitGirl]

I'm told this is specifically a call back to the Patrick Troughton stories The Abominable Snowmen and The Web of Fear which featured the Yeti- I'm told at least one of these stories no longer exists...

The novelisations of these stories still exist. Essentially, the Great Intelligence decided that the London Underground was a good place to base itself to use yetis to take over England. This episode suggests it got the idea from the Doctor.

I resorted to the TVTropes recap page for Doctor Who in order to find this information out: only one episode from each of those serials remains.
This is a shame because I'd love to see a 1960s Yeti.

Well, well. Best Who I've seen in years? I'd quite like to say so. First half? Utterly, utterly amazing. Cloud staircase? Wonderful. Most beautiful TV I've seen this year. Didn't mind Smith in this one, Tennant wouldn't have fit in here. Solution was silly and didn't make sense, otherwise great.

Well, a lot of Doctor Who solutions are silly, but they usually try to make sense using Who-logic. I do think the solution was silly, and cheesy and a bit schmaltzy, but it's also Christmas where the overall solution to things really doesn't matter much.
Plus Strax was amazing, and I agree with you about everything else. I want a TARDIS onna cloud with an old fashioned spiral staircase leading up to it! That's one of the best special effects I've seen in Doctor Who for a while because it was almost entirely practical.
From what I can tell.
And it looks so damn beautiful.

Christmas Special spoilers

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I'm really, really psyked they went where I was really hoping they would with Clara. They did a really good job of hiding and playing it off the way they did, it was just convincing enough until Clara mentioned souffle I believed them! Really excited now!

The Sontaran guy (Strax, was it?) might win Best Companion Ever award, just on the basis of that episode alone. He was priceless. (My Uncle kept pointing out the similarities between him and me... I'll take that comparison, actually...!)

[spoiler]You're like Strax? I would very much like to meet you then, perhaps you could attend the next UK meetup?
I wasn't sure what to expect from Clara, and wasn't sure how she would fit in with Souffle Girl until she mentioned the kitchen. She was just a walking unexpected moment for most of the episode, but yeah, really anticipating the next half of the season

Angels Take Manhattan replies

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...yeah. It's pretty stupid

I'm not normally one for logic when I can just invoke rule of cool/funny/scary/etc. but some things are just too stupid and that's one of them. Even a young child would have second thoughts about Liberty Angel.

They already were, back in Blink, because Cathy ended up in Hull. The only new thing is they can do the two things separately from each other.

IIRC, the word you were unsure of was 'age'.

Ah, 'kay. But ageing and leaving are somewhat synonymous for the Doctor so I caught the spirit if not the words themselves.

I'm not sure. I mean, when you think about it, even once they've grown into it somewhat, the Doctor/River relationship is still pretty messed up. River's whole life has revolved around the Doctor, making her obsessed with him. From being brainwashed to kill him, to him causing her to become a better person before leaving so she felt she had to search for him, to her marrying him and pretending she murdered him and spending years in prison as a result, staying despite the fact she could break out any time you want... abuse victim is certainly not baseless as a comparison. Except for the Doctor isn't really an abuser so much as, as she makes the point, a child. Well, the combination of a child who can't deal well with loss and an old man who's experienced too much of it already.
And of course the whole thing is fed from the other side by the fact the Doctor has already seen River die and probably doesn't want to be reminded of the fact.

Regardless, your point is well made.

Messed up and abusive aren't the same thing, so perhaps there are shadows of both. And while I definitely not saying the relationship is physically abusive, we can go with emotionally disturbing? Severely messed up.
Extremely creepy.
I don't like the idea that, in a consenting relationship, one half would conceal a serious injury from the other in order not to upset him/her/other.

I have mixed feelings about it. I mean, Who under Moffat is much better at keeping secrets, so where something is revealed I have to assume it was deliberate, and the whole setup of Amy and Rory's departure was such as to make it seem inevitable so we'd all go mad with the anticipation of it.

Personally I think it would have been better as a shock, by announcing it beforehand in conjunction with their deaths it seems more than a little manipulative. Points to them for keeping the deaths quiet, but I don't see why they have to announce a character's departure ahead of time. Can't you let us find out on our own?

And, on to Christmas. 'The Great Detective' replies

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Well, I'd imagine people find it somewhat unsettling, but one does not point out a lady's shortcomings. After all, we can't help how we're made. It just strikes me as a fairly Victorian attitude. It doesn't matter if she's a human woman, because regardless she is a lady.

Except for the fact that her mere existence proves evolution to be correct, and that before homo sapiens and apes there was a race of sentient lizard-people who even now exist underground?

It's not like forty years previously (or less) Darwin published his theory of evolution that more or less proved it happened. And even though Darwin left space for God as the first bricklayer, the fact that other sentient species existed would pretty much prove that God doesn't exist.

Probably Lestrade just decided that it didn't matter as she was nice enough even as a member of another species. Also she could eat him.

'The Snowman' replies

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You also know something's wrong when the Doctor is deliberately insulting his friends like that (Regardless of said friend being a Sontaran).

That too.

You were hoping to see the full sequence of her changing?

Or at least a bit more of it.

Extra funny thinking about it because apparently Matt Smith auditioned to be Watson on Sherlock. They didn't think it would work because he was too quirky and it would've been more like having two Sherlocks.

True that, but he also would have been a warmer Sherlock than Benedict Cumberbatch, so it might not have worked as perfectly as it does. Also the Doctor is pretty much Sherlock Holmes anyway. But in space. And other times. And plane

Yep. Super-governess. Much better than Mary Poppins as far as I'm concerned.

Mary Poppins is a Time Lord, her carry-all is her TARDIS. Obviously. And this is a theory I've had for several years now too.

Oh, that's what the rest of that line was. I was laughing too much after 'gentleman friend' to hear the subsequent words.

That's what it was. And it is so deliciously Doctor - even to the point where he'd probably use that line in other times too - to say such a thing without regard for propriety or the potential consequences for such a thing. Such as immediate dismissal.
And the way he says "Kissing!" is hilarious. It also amakes me think he thought 'but not having sex, need to make that clear, what's not sex that couples do?' But then it was a little sad as then I remembered that in 'Power of Three' he thought that the Ponds mostly kissed when they weren't with him.

And I like that even at this point, where he's obviously back out of retirement and saving the world again, he's still got a bit of that resentment he was carrying around earlier - he's saving the world for Clara rather than for the world itself, and he feels that the universe owes him this.

Well it worked. The Doctor got Oswin and a mystery as a thank you for saving the world. Again.

Yeah, I loved that. Especially because in that initial scene, the snow was mostly just repeating what he said to it, so I already felt like it was just echoing him, so it was neat to see I was actually right.
Also it was a nice touch when the voice changed back to young Walter.

Yes it was. Which is why still hearing Gandalf mixed in should have been a clue to the new consci0usness within the globe. Still think it would have been better to make the villain entirely Walter, but the tie-in to Classic Who is quite sweet.

Eh. It didn't seem to me like that's going to become a thing in the same way as Rose/Martha. And in some ways I might prefer Doctor/Clara to Doctor/River, depending on my mood. It did seem a bit randomly thrown in though.

When it comes to the Doctor as much as I joke around I think it Doctor/TARDIS or unshipping. I can approve of the chemistry, and whatnot, even see the good and bad in it as a detached observer, but I just can't ship the Doctor with anyone seriously.
And as for that kiss, one of the reasons I reacted so vehemently is precisely because it was out-of-the-blue, although maybe a little less so now I know Souffle Girl and Clara Oswin are the same person, but I still don't really like it. Whatever happened to building up a relationship because kissing someone's face off?

Don't tell me you weren't thinking it too.

I kind of feel like it was that, even with the bit at the end. The dream outlived the dreamer, but it was still the same dream. Walter made the snow evil over the course of 50 years, and that just became sufficiently ingrained that it stayed that way even after his memories went.
Maybe.

Perhaps. Maybe I'm just holding out for an episode of Doctor Who with no monsters. By all means, we can still have villains, but human ones. Like in 'The Invasion' where the villain really was Frollo, it just turned out he was using/being used by the Cybermen; and even then the Cybermen really weren't in the serial all that much putting the greater emphasis on Frollo and humanity's desire for conformity.

But as for the villain … the Snow was just blah. I'm not entirely certain what the hell it was doing or how it was defeated. I get that it needed to study humans to create an army, but why was it the puppet to this little boy? Yes, the snow reflects emotions and the children were awfully sad for their dead governess, but … why was it affected by this one particular family and no other? And what exactly happened to it at the end? I just don't get it.

There was a massive amount of telepathic/psychic snow there, so when that group of people wa sad their proximity to such a large amount of the snow made it overwhelm the other thoughts.
Or that's what the intent was. And was stated in the show.

Still, I think the special was worth it alone for the line "Hello, I'm a lizardwoman from the dawn of time and this is my wife."

That entire sequence was worth it.

Yeah, the same thing holds true for a lot of things I enjoy. Not that they often have crappy plots but what I most enjoy about about any show I can think of are the little bits, especially character interactions.

Yep! It's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to re-watching 'Midnight' because it's all a character study.

... I guess I'm reading too much into this but I'll just take this as a nice, little Christmas treat.

It's a regional thing. People in my county and much of the South-West tend to be freer with affectionate names and whatnot. Examples include: 'my bird', 'bird', 'pet', 'duck', 'darling' and 'sweet'. Also 'beauty' and 'handsome', or rather 'bew'ee' and 'ansum'.

Well, obviously I can't stay away from the thread for long anyway...
I know it will be up but I still can't watch it. My friend would gut me if I watched Who without her and she still can't get around to it for two more days or so. Even if I give her the Fez I got her for Christmas. (It's pretty poorly hand-made but she likes that craft-y self-made stuff so I guess she'll like it. But I digress....)

At least you'll have good company when you watch it.

Last notes on PoT

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There's mostly two things I recall from Charmed:
1) It's easy to keep a teenage boys attention with three attractive female leads. (Even more so when one of them is Alyssa Milano)
2) I really liked the Cole Character and mostly hated how his story line ended.
( 3) The Opening was pretty cool, yeah)

It's also easy to keep a young girl's attention when it's a major show where the three main characters are all female. Can't remember who Cole is though. I want to say he's a demon?

Waaah, don't just start quoting Pratchett. It gets me all tingly and goosegumps-y. And this is one of the strongest quotes. You can't just throw it around like it's nothing

[...]

You have no idea how much I'd love that. Then again, I'm not sure whether we will eve again have anything that's on Pratchett's peak level of writing, in Who or in Discworld
But we're not here to praise Pratchett, we all know how great he is.

Hehe, that's why they stick in my mind so much and why I think the Death books are some of the best Discworld books. And hey, at least I didn't quote night Watch at you.
It is a shame that a Pratchett Who is a dream. I do disagree about there being a peak to his writing (I think), as Night Watch is relatively recent and bloody amazing. Sometimes the topic and his writing together are perfect, sometimes they are not. And even his weakest Discworld books are still better than the average book.
Oh, and Pratchett is to be praised no matter the topic of the thread. Always.

'Angels Take Manhattan' replies

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Yeah, even with the 1920s setting and an Angel's speed Liberty Angel shatters suspension of disbelieve as easily as a fake bottle in a western movie. They should have just skipped that but I guess temptation was too big.

They're adults, they should be able to resist it. I am certainly not a model grown up, but even I can tell when indulging would be bad. F'rinstance, I'm spacing out watching all my Christmas gifts, the vast majority of our choclates and sweets remain uneaten and I'm fine for it. A little can go a long way, and Liberty was far too much, far too soon.
Maybe if it was worked up as a climax, with the Angels deliberately working to convert Liberty into an Angel for [reasons] I would accept it as more plausible - or at least less straining on my personal suspension suspension of disbelief - but outright? NO.

Rory Williams, Doctor Who's Kenny McCormick... Well, it's (most probably) the last time he will have died.

Well, now he's deadI don't think he should come back at all unless you want to cheapen his (and Amy's) final choices. Unless it's for the fiftieth anniversary. Anything goes for anniversary specials.

Well, you'll have to give it to Moffat... first you think their paradox plan might fail, then you think "yay, they are just going to leave and stay at home" and then BAM! That's probably why it worked so well(?)

Yes, he is rather good at emotional punches. And scary ones.

Don't worry, I don't think anyone including the writers can tell you what a fixed point is. Mostly it is "what makes a good plot" and I can live with that in a show with a time travelling, regenerating alien who goes around kidnapping young girls. (Not exclusively but surprisingly often)

Which is why I don't usually make too much of a fuss about fixed points in time. They make a certain amount of sense, and given the timey-wimey ball I can see some Cosmic Power needing a few knots that always remain, but sometimes you do have to wonder what constitutes a fixed point.
And why reading a book made it so.

I really have to admit I can't quite see the "abused wife" thing with River... I'm not even entirely sure if I could follow you. While, yes, the "we should not talk about" thing is related and terrible it was pretty obvious that the situation has nothing to do with it but merely about not making him worry because...? The Doctor is a child or whatever... Well, she loves him too much to have him worry? I don't know.
At least I didn't get the "abused wife" feeling there. I'm sorry if it ruined the scene for you.

It's a bit of an analogy. It's unsettling to me because I know of females (and first-hand of a male) who hid injuries that way for various reasons. And personally 'he's a child' is a terrible reason to hide something from someone.
If you are hurt and a child you care about doesn't know they get angrier at you for not telling them. I can see this 'preservation of innocence' is often a good thing, but not to things like that.
Yes, the child will be sad you're hurt, maybe guilty if it was directly or indirectly their fault, but hiding it? No. It will hurt the child and you when you tell them, but don't give them false hope. False hope is a poison, and when they find out you gave them that poison they'll feel betrayed.
The scene made me feel a little off-kilter, and that was the only way I could explain it. Hope the above was a better explanation for my uneasiness.

Yeah, while I'm always a bit averse when it comes to the really cheesy love stories if you accept it for Amy and Rory it really is one of my favourite ones. What the two of them did for each other in Pandorica opens or Girl Who Waited or other stories just counts for a lot. I'm perfectly willing to accept what happened there.

Yep. And it's also a question of double standards.
If I condemn Amy for choosing to risk complete temporal and spatial displacement for a chance to see Rory again, and in doing so give up her life, then I have to condemn Rory for waiting two thousand years risking all sorts of things for the chance to see her again.
If I say it's romantic for a boy, then it's romantic for a girl too. So while it's cheesy, and unwise and the like, ultimately I do like it because Rory chose to do it for her, and now Amy's chosen to do it for Rory too.

Really? I think it worked perfectly well like that. Maybe because with actual actors it might have actually shattered my heart and I'm not quite willing to have that done to me quite yet. The only regret I have about it is that a few people quite possibly missed it because it was not aired.

Yes, it worked perfectly well as a storyboarded scene set to music with a voice over, but the power of it as a full scene would have been immense. Oh, it would have shattered hearts, but the power of that scene. It would have been a perfect bookend and everyone would have known that Rory and Amy finally adopted.

One thing I really liked about the Christmas episode:

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Jenna maintains her "Total, Screaming Genius (And Just A Little Bit Sexy)" cred, but much of it is really rather subtle. Sure, there's the rooftop scene (and the extension into the TARDIS), where she blatantly works out the Doctor's schemes without him saying much of anything. The real moment of truth, however, was the memory worm.

When Strax is under the cart looking for the worm, the Doctor notes that Clara still isn't running. Why? Because she knows what's about to happen and wouldn't miss it for anything. She spotted the gauntlets before any of it happened, identified them for what they were despite the alien hand shape, and predicted how events would go and how funny they would be. And she did this all before the Doctor even realized she still wasn't running.

I also thought it was a nice touch that Strax was the one charged with taking care of the injured woman. They never outright remind the audience of it, but Strax IS a trained nurse, after all.

I wonder what "friend" was responsible for Strax's resurrection? Did he take Strax's body to the Bad Wolf station during the Dalek invasion? Just sneak in, leave the body in a closet, come back after the fireworks, and pick up the Sontaran after Godmode Rose starts fixing people?

I suppose I can see why he wouldn't turn to his "friend" when other people died. Everyone dies around the Doctor, but Strax is something special. His time as a nurse has made him more than a Sontaran, an interchangeable clone, it's made him a person. Someone that can be counted on as an ally rather than an enemy. It's all nicely handled, and Strax is freaking hilarious.

Spoilered for those who've not seen it:
[spoiler]More or less total agreement there. I do like Clara!Oswin a lot, and find her charming, but that rooftop scene was a bit much even for a genius because she grated. Also, and I can't believe I'm saying this given how quickly I talk, but she talked too quickly.
I understand this is to show the speed of her mind and to set her as close to an equal as a human can be to the Doctor, but I somehow feel it could have been better if she started off slower and then worked her way up to Hypersonic Speed.
Yes, the whole episode was her quiet genius at work (that One Word Answer scene is amazing) but I can't help but feel it was too abrupt a transition from quietly hanging around getting kicks out of Strax's accidental amnesia to full-on babbling Doctor-style.

And as for Strax's suddenly being alive again; I don't care if this episode takes place before or after Demon's Run in the Paternoster Gang's personal timeline, because Strax is alive and that's all that matters. That little handwave about getting a friend to cast Resurrection on him is all I need. [/quote]

The Web of Fear was a very important episode in the show's history--it was the first appearance of the Brigadier (though at that point, he was still a colonel).

Which ties back thematically to the Brigette of 'Power of Three' making her first appearance.

So, revised Review Timeline:
'Remembrance of the Daleks' parts 2 - 4 (because I'd thought I'd done part 2, but my archive says I haven't. Unless I have and forgot to link it?
'Genesis of the Daleks' - because it turns out when Dad purloined Hot Fuzz he also slipped 'Genesis' into the case behind the second disc of Hot Fuzz.

And then: for Christmas I got 'Colony in Space' and 'Day of the Daleks'. Thematically, I should continue with 'Day of the Daleks', and it has a special edition version of the serial with "specially shot sequences, brand-new effects and new Dalek voices" which colours me intrigued.
BUT. 'Colony in Space' clearly shows Delgado!Master on the front cover, and the synopsis tells me who stole a doomsday weapon called Doomsday Weapon and plans to bring about Doomsday with it.

Both have Jon Pertwee and Jo Grant in, 'Daleks' has UNIT, but 'Colony' hints at Time Lords being involved, but probably no UNIT.
Opinions?

[Calemyr]

Spoilered for those who've not seen it:

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More or less total agreement there. I do like Clara!Oswin a lot, and find her charming, but that rooftop scene was a bit much even for a genius because she grated. Also, and I can't believe I'm saying this given how quickly I talk, but she talked too quickly.
I understand this is to show the speed of her mind and to set her as close to an equal as a human can be to the Doctor, but I somehow feel it could have been better if she started off slower and then worked her way up to Hypersonic Speed.
Yes, the whole episode was her quiet genius at work (that One Word Answer scene is amazing) but I can't help but feel it was too abrupt a transition from quietly hanging around getting kicks out of Strax's accidental amnesia to full-on babbling Doctor-style.

And as for Strax's suddenly being alive again; I don't care if this episode takes place before or after Demon's Run in the Paternoster Gang's personal timeline, because Strax is alive and that's all that matters. That little handwave about getting a friend to cast Resurrection on him is all I need.

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This is decidedly after Demon's Run. The Doctor gets mad when Clara talks ill of Strax, saying that he once gave his life for one of the Doctor's friends. When asked what he's still doing alive, he says that he "had a friend that brought him back - BUT I DON'T THINK ALL HIS BRAINS MADE THE RETURN TRIP!" ... But then, rereading your post I can see that you'd already caught that.

I am curious what Clara is. A character who can't stay dead would be an interesting companion, but I don't know if the Doctor could take watching her die again and again. On the other hand, if you've ever seen the anime Steins;Gate, I could see her following a similar path to Mayuri Shiina.

[Forrestfire]

Christmas Special

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I absolutely loved this episode. There are too many things for me to list all at once, but I think the top moments for me were any scenes with Strax. He just stole the show

Also, I liked the remark that the staircase to the TARDIS was "smaller on the inside." With tech like that, I wonder if Gallifrey had elevators at all.

[Strawberries]

Finally saw the episode, and may I say that I really really loved it. Much better than last year's Christmas special.

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I liked Clara-Clara much more than Oswin-Clara of Asylum. If she keeps this personality she may be a companion I may actually like without reservations (I'm picky about companions).

Also, loved the TARDIS on the cloud. And Strax. And...pretty much everything of the episode, except maybe the resolution. But it's Christmas, so I'll forgive.

Just one thing: I saw the new TARDIS and I rescind what I said previously:

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I don't like it. I mean, I still love the Gallifreyan symbols, but the whole is too...clean. Sterile, somehow. I get that it's a reference to Classic Who, but I liked the old 'assembled piece of junk' feeling more

[Eldan]

But they changed hte outside too, it's now dirty and with the paint peeling off. That, I think, I kinda like.

Really didn't like the intro, though. Too overloaded, too many things going on.

[Strawberries]

But they changed hte outside too, it's now dirty and with the paint peeling off. That, I think, I kinda like

Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that. Yes, I like that as well.

[Androgeus]

So, revised Review Timeline:
'Remembrance of the Daleks' parts 2 - 4 (because I'd thought I'd done part 2, but my archive says I haven't. Unless I have and forgot to link it?

If you think you've done it you probably have, I'll check through the thread later see if I can find it

And then: for Christmas I got 'Colony in Space' and 'Day of the Daleks'.

On Doctor Who Christmas presents I got this

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I'll try to throw up quick reviews for each audio book once I've listened to them.

oh also Q&A with Matt, Jenna and Moffat. Not many interesting question but Moffat says part of the change to the TARDIS interior was to make it less whimsical (or at least they used the opportunity of changing the TARDIS to make it less whimsical)

[Eldan]

Why would you ever want a non-whimsical TARDIS?

[Thufir]

*sneaks in* Everything Christmas-y still spoilered? Good.

Well, mostly at least. A couple of bits might have been missed here or there.

You have no idea how much I'd love that.

Yes we do. Believe me. We do.

I wonder what "friend" was responsible for Strax's resurrection? Did he take Strax's body to the Bad Wolf station during the Dalek invasion? Just sneak in, leave the body in a closet, come back after the fireworks, and pick up the Sontaran after Godmode Rose starts fixing people?

Definitely not, because Godmode Rose didn't fix people, she just fixed Jack, specifically.

The kid's last name was Simian? No wonder he grew to hate his peers. The field days they must have had with that name.

I think it was actually Simeon- which is a proper biblical name (and thus all the rage in the upper strata of Victorian society)

This.

Messed up and abusive aren't the same thing, so perhaps there are shadows of both. And while I definitely not saying the relationship is physically abusive, we can go with emotionally disturbing? Severely messed up.
Extremely creepy.
I don't like the idea that, in a consenting relationship, one half would conceal a serious injury from the other in order not to upset him/her/other.

Well, no, nor do I. And it's a bad idea whatever the reasoning, as you outlined further down your post.

Personally I think it would have been better as a shock, by announcing it beforehand in conjunction with their deaths it seems more than a little manipulative. Points to them for keeping the deaths quiet, but I don't see why they have to announce a character's departure ahead of time. Can't you let us find out on our own?

Like I said, I have mixed feelings. Sometimes a surprise can be amazing, sometimes knowing in advance can really add to the suspense with foreshadowing and stuff.
Also of course it must be noted that with something as big as replacing long-time companions on Doctor Who it may be difficult for them to keep the news quiet, so it's possible they figured people would find out anyway and they might as well make something of it.


Christmas stuff

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That's what it was. And it is so deliciously Doctor - even to the point where he'd probably use that line in other times too - to say such a thing without regard for propriety or the potential consequences for such a thing. Such as immediate dismissal.
And the way he says "Kissing!" is hilarious. It also amakes me think he thought 'but not having sex, need to make that clear, what's not sex that couples do?' But then it was a little sad as then I remembered that in 'Power of Three' he thought that the Ponds mostly kissed when they weren't with him.

For me as well, with those two bits both coming up in your reviews which were in such close proximity to each other.
And it's just so funny because it's so implausible to anyone familiar with the Doctor that he would ever be someone's gentleman-friend, sneaking into their house at night to illicitly canoodle. And for that matter anyone who was doing that almost certainly wouldn't instantly admit it. It's actually a reversal of a scene one could imagine with more normal characters, where the young man would be very flustered and say something like "Er- I, er- I'm a, er, friend of Clara's, and I was just helping her with, er, an... ice monster? which appeared upstairs?"

When it comes to the Doctor as much as I joke around I think it Doctor/TARDIS or unshipping. I can approve of the chemistry, and whatnot, even see the good and bad in it as a detached observer, but I just can't ship the Doctor with anyone seriously.

Well, yes, Doctor/TARDIS is canon and the best ship. But if there are going to be others, some are more reasonable than others. And my impression of Clara's character suggests to me that a potential Doctor/Clara would be wonderfully uncomplicated, especially in contrast to every other companion romance we've had on Nu Who.

Don't tell me you weren't thinking it too.

Actually I was mostly just loving the scene in general and thinking "Oh, so Clara's line in the trailer about the Doctor living on a cloud in the sky is actually true, not something she just made up."

I am certainly not a model grown up,

The very suggestion of the possibility causes me to snigger.

It's a bit of an analogy. It's unsettling to me because I know of females (and first-hand of a male) who hid injuries that way for various reasons. And personally 'he's a child' is a terrible reason to hide something from someone.
If you are hurt and a child you care about doesn't know they get angrier at you for not telling them. I can see this 'preservation of innocence' is often a good thing, but not to things like that.
Yes, the child will be sad you're hurt, maybe guilty if it was directly or indirectly their fault, but hiding it? No. It will hurt the child and you when you tell them, but don't give them false hope. False hope is a poison, and when they find out you gave them that poison they'll feel betrayed.

Which, it should be noted, is exactly how the Doctor did react. It was a stupid idea on River's part. Though perhaps an understandable one. She knows how badly he can take things which remind him of the fragility and mortality of his friends; she's mentioned previously that she greatly dreads the day she will meet him and he won't know who she is, because that to her will be like losing him; and she may well assume he feels similarly badly about the prospect of when he will lose her - not knowing, of course, that he has already seen her death. I think someone shortly after the episode made a point basically to that effect - that her level of hurt on realising that for the entirety of their relationship he knew how she died could be easily linked to the efforts she had futilely put into trying not to remind him that it would happen.
While I think of it, there are some extra scenes on the series 6 DVDs which touch on other moments of the Doctor/River relationship. Sadly I don't think they're on youtube, I don't know if they're elsewhere. Called First Night and Last Night (Also there're a couple of non-River bits the names of which escape me, and a scene of Craig, Sophie and Stormageddon which serves as a mini-prequel to Closing Time, which I think is called Good Night?)

Oh also Q&A with Matt, Jenna and Moffat. Not many interesting questions but Moffat says part of the change to the TARDIS interior was to make it less whimsical (or at least they used the opportunity of changing the TARDIS to make it less whimsical)

Hmm. I'm OK with that. I like the variety in the different appearances of the TARDIS we've had, and a less whimsical one is not unreasonable.
I really like Moffat's answer to the question about whether casting influences writing, because I know how true it is. Not from a writing perspective, but from the perspective of directing a show (With my old university Gilbert & Sullivan society), I know there are things I've come up with which would never have occurred to me before we did the casting.
Also, that child at the end was clearly underplaying his feelings. Maybe? Why try to hide it? Every little boy wants to be the Doctor!


Oh, and among my Christmas presents was this:

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I will of course be bringing it to the next UK meetup.

[Calemyr]

I think it was actually Simeon- which is a proper biblical name (and thus all the rage in the upper strata of Victorian society)

Since when does something as pedestrian as reality get in the way of childrens' cruelty?

[CurlyKitGirl]

Started work on 'Genesis' 3/6, and did a little more research into the crew behind the serial.

These guys are giants of Doctor Who.

[Cen]

So, after watching christmas special:

Any theories/speculations on what/who is Clara?

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witty genius girl who can't stay dead and loves adventures?

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anybody remembers Jenny?

[BRC]

So I just watched it

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I'm still not entirely sure why Clara chased after The Doctor in the first place, or why she was living a double life as a barmaid/Governess. Especially since she made it sound like she randomly took a few days off from governessing in order to work as a Barmaid.

My only thought is that all the "Claras" are actually one Clara, jumping around in time and acting out a script. She was a barmaid/governess who chased after The Doctor's carriage because she already knew The Doctor, and he said "Go hang out in Victorian London, get a job as a barmaid,and one as a governess, then chase after my carriage" Then he faked her death. Though that may be a little TOO moffatian, even for Moffat.
Second (less Likely) theory: Clara never actually joins to Tardis. Each episode the Doctor shows up somewhere, encounters a Clara and an Alien Threat. Clara dies stopping the Alien Threat. Doctor moves on to the next Clara.

Also, for a while there it looked like they were going to do a non-modern companion. Her death caught me off guard.

Along with
That said, I LOVE the idea of the companion being the central Mystery of the season.Usually the Central Mystery just kind of shows up at the end. Having a season center around the idea of "Who The Hell Is Clara Oswald" sounds fascinating, especially since the Stinger of Modern Clara in the graveyard made it seem like she knew something. They kind of experimented with a companion who knew more than the Doctor with River. If they run with that, it could be really, really interesting.


Also, Moonites and Grenades. Strax is awesome.

[Sunken Valley]

The Web of Fear was a very important episode in the show's history--it was the first appearance of the Brigadier (though at that point, he was still a colonel).

As for the Christmas special,

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Strax was the best thing about it, and that's not a backhanded compliment, 'cause overall I liked the episode quite a bit. The plot was weak--especially the resolution--and it didn't have a great villian, but the acting was great (gotta disagree with Sunken Valley about Digby--I thought even the child actors did a good job) and the dialogue was outstanding.

There's about a hundred other things I'd like to say about the episode, but I'm still organizing my thoughts

I believe it was Curly who criticised Digby, not me. Nobody’s quoted my review yet, sorry.

But they will quote this: As Curly and a few others have said, something is going on with Doctor Who and portrayals of women. Some think it’s uncomfortable, some don’t see it and some deny it. But all in this forum (unless I’m missing someone, probably am) are missing the big picture. The sexism is a) not so much about sexism as it is about variety and stereotyping and b) originates much further back than merely season 7. I postulate that the recent bout of sexism of Doctor Who originates from Stephen Moffat and has existed since 2005.

Obviously Doctor Who is always going to be kind of sexist. It’s this alien man of advanced intellect travelling around with a mortal(s) (usually female) assistant(s). That sort of sexist as it is. But the way I see it, both the Doctor and Companion have equal heroic merit. It’s kind of like Tolkien. Who is the hero of Tolkien’s books? Obviously Gandalf, the wizard and thus most powerful character. False, it is the Hobbit, the little man who although far away from the perfection of the wizard, is able to persevere and become just as great. Therefore, the Hobbit and Gandalf are equals. Sometimes one saves the day with the other doing little, often Gandalf must pull the Hobbit out of the fire, but together they are unstoppable. In recent times, media has pulled off this relationship by giving (regardless of gender) the Hobbit a character arc to become the equal of Gandalf. And make Gandalf flawed. That’s important because see later.

Bad analogy time over. In 2004 Moffat said in an interview which I cannot find that “women are needy”. This is because young girls play at marriages whereas men try and avoid it. Therefore, according to Moffat, all women desire marriage and/or the setting up of a family. Thus, a woman is solely defined by her status as a wife and/or mother.

Let’s go through all the important women in New Who:


Emma
From Curse of Fatal Death: the first Moffat story. A woman who existed solely to swoon over the Doctor. Fortunately, this is a parody and thus bears no relation to canon. Moving on.

Rose Tyler
Now come on Sunken, Rose has to be sexist. Always pining over the Doctor, damned annoying that Rose. Yes and no. Whilst Rose did eventually get annoying, she was not solely defined by the Doctor. She travelled with him not to “get in” but instead for a “better life” she not only had interests beyond the Doctor but also had others she cared about: Jackie, Mickey and Pete (in Father’s Day).

Nancy
From Empty Child. A rounded character with interests beyond romance and babies. Her arc involved her accepting her role as a mother and healing her son with her motherhood, thus she defines herself by it. Good, makes sense. What a lovely story. Let’s see what Moffat has next.

Reinette Du Pompadour
From Girl in the Fireplace. Does not define herself by motherhood on account of not having kids. Instead she defines herself by the men in her life, the king of France and the Doctor. She waits for the Doctor her whole life, but still she accomplishes things. Rose and Reinette have a brief conversation where she says that a life filled with monsters and nightmares is worth it “for the sake of an angel”. Rose never produces a rebuttal to her even though she does not consider life with the Doctor to be such. It also sort of encourages women to put up with horrible things in their relationships for the sake of a man. Its one line though. And one line isn’t going to come back and haunt us.

Martha Jones
The infamous bunnyface seems annoying in that she tries to romance the Doctor. However, when she sees that the relationship is ruining her life she leaves. In season 4 she does something with her life, she works for UNIT. Also, she was a developed character in that she had even more interests other than the Doctor than Rose and never defined herself by a man.

Sally Sparrow
From everyone’s favourite episode. She has goals and interests outside of men. She never defines herself by a man. But wait, right at the end we need to tie up Sally’s story. Let’s have her date proto-Rory who she never showed any interest in. We need to tack it on because just like the last two. Why? Because a woman’s story must end with a man and/or a family.

Kathy Nightingale
Also from Blink. After transportation, marries and starts a family. Because a woman’s story must end with a man and/or a family. Also, her future husband followed her around asking for marriage. That has stalker written all over it. We need some context for this to make sense. But Blink is one of the best Who episodes, such contrivances are minor nitpicks

Donna Noble
Ten’s best friend. Strong female with interests blah never defines herself blah. Good. However, in Silence in the Library, Donna is sent to a dream world where she lives a perfect life. Because a woman’s story must end with a man and/or a family. Although wanting marriage was a trait of Donna, she also wanted more in life, not just this ending.

River Song
In her debut, she seems like a cool independent adventurer but whilst having “history” with the Doctor is not defined by him. However we see her end inside the computer where she looks after kids. Because a woman’s story must end with a man and/or a family. But it gets worse. Her messed up relationship with the Doctor is revealed more and more with each appearance until we see how much she defines herself by the man. River, the archaeologist, isn’t even passionate about that, only taking it for the chance to see the Doctor. More later.

Amy Pond
Starts out with sort of interests from the Doctor. She has a whole bunch of neighbours and acquaintances who we meet in “The Eleventh Hour”, such as Rory and Jeff (the guy who looks at porn) and the old woman and um…er. That’s right, everyone except Rory, the fiancé, is never mentioned again, leaving Amy with no interests outside the Doctor and Rory. The origin story, how she had to wait for the Doctor, is a rip-off of Reinette without the productivity.

But wait, she does have family, she has that sub-plot about her parents disappearing. She helped make them come back. And they were mentioned tons of times afterwards. No, sorry. They are never mentioned again.

But wait, she does have interests, that modelling career. Because the only thing a women is good for is her body. Regardless, she no longer has that job. Well what about her travel writing. Now that’s just nonsensical. A travel journalist is someone who is interested in travelling and exploring “this” world and keeping up to date with “current” events. The Power of Three is all about how boring life at home is and how travel through space and time is so much better. Furthermore, we never see her writing, travelling (outside of TARDIS) or previously expressing a desire. Show, not tell.

It gets worse. In season 6, a big deal is made of Amy and Rory’s relationship. Because a woman’s story must end with a man and/or a family. Then the pregnancy sub-plot. Amy has a baby (without anyone telling her). Then it’s snatched from her, she never gets the chance to raise it. What a harrowing experience. The implications alone would make a good story. Surely Amy is eternally affected by this shocking turn…oh wait. She’s back to normal next week. None of the events that happen to her have any effect on her at all. That’s just poor writing. Eventually she had to be forced to settle down with Rory and the big house. Because a woman’s story must end with a man and/or a family.

It gets worse. There’s the divorce sub-plot. But we never see how it came to be. We just get it forced in our faces right in the premiere. Not only is it out of what little character Amy had, but she didn’t tell her husband, her fellow companion, the last centurion, A MEMBER OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION about the reason behind her divorce. That speaks massive communication problems. It also implies that a barren woman is worthless. That’s not true. This action will surely have long reachin consequences…oh wait. Back to normal in 45 mins and never mentioned again. Unrealistic much?

Angels Take Manhattan
Whilst the wrist breaking scene is bad, Amy and River’s conversation is worse. In it, River tells Amy “When one’s in love with an ageless god who insists on the face of a twelve-year-old, one does one’s best to hide the damage. Never ever let him see you age. He doesn’t like endings.”. So therefore, like Reinette, not only must you put up with misery for an angel, you have to look good. That is a terrible, terrible message for the kids to receive, especially when it’s so spelt out. Plus River is proved right. Which is a problem. Nobody is ever called out on the consequences of their actions on Doctor Who anymore. Not the Doctor killing the Silents or Solomon, not on breaking the wrist, not on the divorce subplot, not on anything. Characters need to be called out on their actions. Finally, Amy has a life in 1930s New York with Rory. Because a woman’s story must end with a man and/or a family.

But surely Amy and River aren’t the only female characters Moffat made under his run? Let’s look at some more

Liz 10
From the Beast Below. Because of Curlers, I’m not going to say much. But this character does not define herself by a man and has other interests. Plus she doesn’t settle down with a family (not really any way).

Abigail
From Christmas Carol. Only acts as a love interest to Kazran and is frozen when not needed. She only really wants to spend time with Kazran.

Vastra and Jenny
Not going to talk about them until “Crimson Horror” their next Mark Gattiss scripted debut. We haven’t seen the last of them.

Madge
From The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe. One of the most sexist characters in Who history. She has absolutely no personality traits other than being a mother and a bad driver (which is sexist in itself). She never develops as a character, she never grows. She doesn’t even have to tell the kids about their father’s death. Plus you have that contextless stalker relationship thing again.

Nefertiti
A strong woman with other interests. But eventually she settles with sexist Riddell. Because a woman’s story must end with a man and/or a family.

In conclusion, Stephen Moffat mostly uses stereotypes to do his character writing. There are many different types of women, but Moffat only appears to be showing us one or two types. Mostly, the characters seem underdeveloped. Say what you will about RTD's plots, at least he had better developed characters. I don’t what else to say so make your own conclusions.

And yes I know I'm at the end of a page again. So people are just gonna ignore this. But at least I did it before Curly had a chance.

[Cen]

a little inconsistency that just occured to me:

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at the end of 'Snowman' Doctor says that he remember Clara's voice from Asylum, right? but she was a Dalek then so her voice was Dalekish so he couldn't have heared her voice

[Sunken Valley]

a little inconsistency that just occured to me:

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at the end of 'Snowman' Doctor says that he remember Clara's voice from Asylum, right? but she was a Dalek then so her voice was Dalekish so he couldn't have heared her voice

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No, her voice was human on the speaker before he saw her true form. Why, I don't know.

See you all on page 34!