Doctor Who

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

With LOST however they'd always recap previous episodes which have relevence to the upcomming episode's events. It's the same as the critism about Moffat.

There's a thin line between a story being stretched out too long and being too squashed. Stretched out too long you get Miracle Day or any other generic American format TV show. Squashed too much you get a RTD series story arc.

I prefer the stretched out stories personally as it reward memory and gives you more time to hypothesise before being shown what happens. But only if there's "meaningful" developements/events in the mean time. Otherwise you get generic crap Anime where you can happily watch the first episode then the last episode and your curiosity is satisfied (or Desperate Housewives season 1).

[tbug]

I'm not sure television has caught up with the post-torrent age. They still think in terms of people possibly not having seen the previous episode. That, or they're courting the casual viewer who might not obsessively pay the close attention to detail that all of us here obviously do. Doctor Who reaches a pretty wide demographic, presumably including parents and kids who talk during the show or squabble or just lose focus for one reason or another.

In other words, I don't think that we're the target audience of the recap sections, or the repeated broad hints to the metaplots.

[Geoff_B]

With LOST however they'd always recap previous episodes which have relevence to the upcomming episode's events. It's the same as the critism about Moffat.

To be fair, a lot of the "previously"s for Lost (is that a word? it is now!) went back a number of episodes, sometimes previous seasons, so even if you're watching it on DVD you might need your memory jogged as to what's gone before. With Doctor Who it only ever has to go a few episodes back so it's probably more noticeable.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

I don't know. I watched the finale with my parents live on a *television* and my dad decided to ask me to close the curtains during some important dialogue. I enjoy being treated like a moron. It means I can write elitist opinnionate satirical critisms about the show.

With the torrent thing I had a thought a few weeks about Torchwood Miracleday. As a series where you watch it week by week episode by episode it was fucking all over the place with pacing. However, I would imagine watching the series in one go or in big blocks it would have worked better.

That's the problem I have with American shows and alot of bad TV dramas. They're awful to watch week by week but if you get yourself the box-set or torrent the whole season then you're in paradise.


What Moffat does do well is the background subtle hints that are building up to a mega huge storyline; Omega. A few Omega symbols apear in the series with the roman numerals II intersecting it, implying Omega II. But yes, it's a shame some more current plot elements are shouted at you. Not to the extent of RTD but still...

[tbug]

What Moffat does do well is the background subtle hints that are building up to a mega huge storyline; Omega.

Have you managed to watch either of the Omega stories since the last time we discussed this? I keep meaning to rewatch them, but I'm in a show and have no free time just now. I'd love to hear how you think it's going to tie in.

[Gordon Fearman]

Not to the extent of RTD but still...

Do you ever get tired of taking shots at Davies? I think all of your posts do it. I don't like a lot of things, but I don't see the need to bring it up every 5 hours.

[Fezzul]

Omega's coming back? Sweet. Though I still want to see a Romana again. Either would do, and I wouldn't be averse to a new one, but it's always fun to see a vintage Romana.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

Not to the extent of RTD but still...

Do you ever get tired of taking shots at Davies?

Nope

[Elomin Sha]

Quick question, who are Omega?

[Fezzul]

Omega, according to 'The Three Doctors' was the time lord who created the eye of harmony from which all TARDISes draw there power.

Unfortunately, during his experiments he was sucked through a black hole-type thing in to an anti-matter universe. He resented the Time-Lords for having the power which he created and then couldn't enjoy and became very very bitter and has since tried to return to the normal universe (twice in the TV series canon) both times nearly causing devastating damage to it. He's also not that keen on the Doctor.

There are variations on some of these details, as created in later Who series, and also in my bad memory.

For more specific info, I suggest a look up the Wikipedia.

[tbug]

TARDIS wiki: Omega

[Geoff_B]

There's still the whole backstory started in Seven's series with "Rassilon, Omega, and... someone else" and the Hand of Omega. Be interesting to see if that ever gets picked up.

EDIT: This is post 2001. The Space Odyssey begins...

[Gordon Fearman]

Not to the extent of RTD but still...

Do you ever get tired of taking shots at Davies?

Nope

Why did you even bother watching a series that you apparently hated?

[tbug]

Why did you even bother watching a series that you apparently hated?

Same reason you bother reading his posts?

Seriously though, I can see it. There have been shows I've really loved that have gone into slumps but I've kept watching them. If I started hating episode after episode of Doctor Who I'd still keep watching for a while before I gave up on it entirely. I remember sort of feeling this way about the sixth Doctor, in fact. (I thought the actor was great; I just didn't like the material he was forced to work with.)

All hating aside, I honestly am interested in knowing more about the Omega theory. In particular, where do you come down on the Cartmel Masterplan?

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

The theory only rests upon the constant Omega symbols that crop up in a good man goes to war and time of angels.

I havn't seen the previous series' nor read up on them so I have no idea. I'm only repeating someone else's theory I came across.

I kept watching Davis' series in hope they got better and for the chance of some gems. (I really like the two parter set around the Satan pit and the episode with the Reaper monsters.) I would have thought it was a good thing that I kept watching it because some visual media I can't be bothered giving a chance (Jimquisition isn't for me I'm afraid nor was Gamedogs or Dollhouse/Walking dead)

The Cartmel Masterplan seems quite interesting, well what I've read. I do recall reading somewhere that Timelords had genetic information on a 'loom' and that's how they made timelords and that one of the original creators had an accident and his genes fell into the looms timey wimeiness and that the doctor is possibley a reincarntation of him.

But, with the new series they keep building up the mythology of the Doctor (family of blood, silence in the libary, good man goes to war etc etc) as if he is turning into a deity. The God Complex seems to hold up a mirror to the Doctor. The Doctor's enemies lock up the Doctor because they blame him for the cracks (they fear his 'power'). The Silence are detrimed to kill him to prevent his future actions.
I find it strange how it's the Doctor who ends the Timewar by erradication both sides. Why would such a reletively juivinile and inexperienced Timelord have so much power? Sure it's convenient for the story because he's the Main Character, but in the universe it's set it, it seems illogical that by chance he can do this. There does seem to be something surrounding The Doctor implying he's not just a Timelord or even Last of the Timelords (for a start there's Jenny and heavne knows what ever timelords hiding places and Omega qqing in Darkmatterworld).

I still want to know what the Doctor saw which feared him in God Complex but for sure you hear the cloister bells.

One thing which puzzles me is in Silence in the Libary when River tells him his name to gain his trust she says "I'm so sorry...". I doubt it's because she's spoiling what's to come. I think his name has some dark connections or is very dangerous. Also, in The Wedding of River Song he talks about a man that 'Know a very dark and dangerous seceret'. Hmm...


http://www.timelord50.co.uk/2011/02/doc ... tails.html

Is a wild guess of the Omega theory. You can see most of it is proved wrong but there are some interesting things. Some can be just coincidence but one or two points cannot be denied.

[Digital Dolphin]

I keep watching Doctor Who even though I think Moffat did a terrible job of Season 5. I'm glad I DID keep watching because some of season 6 was amazing. A good man goes to war was an AMAZING episode for instance.

And it's not like I hated all of Moffat's earlier work, I thought the original episode involving the angels was terrifying and one of the best eps of Doctor Who in general.

I think when it comes to Doctor Who, we become hyper critical because we CARE, and we want to see it be awesome.

As for me, I'm looking forward to season 7. I just hope they don't actually answer THE QUESTION.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

They don't need to as it heavily implies he's a God figure or Jesus figure. (look at the end of the Master paradox finale for fuck's sake )

They'll probably skit around the answer by implying what it could be or what it means/represents.

[ThrashJazzAssassin]

I dislike the Cartmel Masterplan; it's too much, and would be even more so at this point in the series than when it was first conceived. I hope Steven Moffat doesn't borrow too heavily from it. Having got to the point where the Doctor is known and revered/reviled across so much of time and space, there's no way you can make "But wait! He's even more special!" into a dramatically satisfying revelation. Particularly when people who haven't seen a substantial chunk of classic Who or browsed the relevant wiki pages will have little context for such a revelation. Moffat would need to bring Gallifrey back in a hurry if he actually wanted to pull off a resurrection of the Cartmel idea, but I suspect he has something new in mind, even if it borrows from Cartmel.

The Doctor is already - by virtue of his on-screen actions - the stuff of legend, even in the classic series when he was less of a universal celebrity. Making him the stuff of Time Lord legend on top of that is meaningless, both to the audience and to the majority of the universe in-continuity, since the Time Lords already seem godlike to us. And if the Doctor is the co-founder of Time Lord society AND the one who tears about the universe saving people AND the Last of the Time Lords then the rest of the population of Gallifrey is made to look irrelevant and ineffectual.

Additionally, casting the Doctor as the reincarnation of the Other implies he's essentially predestined for greatness. (I'm sure TVTropes has a name for this, but I'm not going near there at this time of night in case I get trapped.) Characters are generally more impressive if there isn't any special reason why they should achieve more than anyone else. Why can't the Doctor just be an "ordinary" Time Lord? Isn't that enough? It's certainly how he's always come across.

Most importantly, I can't see the idea leading to any interesting stories. Once the revelation was out the way, what would you actually do with the concept?

[Fezzul]

As I understand it, the idea that the Doctor was a Time Lord legend wasn't ever going to be fully revealed. Just alluded to a hell of a lot.

The stuff about the Looms, stemming from the novel Lungbarrow (I think), was only ever meant to hang in the distance as a possibility. It was sort of a writer's brief devised by Marc Platt so that at least the regular writers knew what they were mysteriously hinting at. The only reason we know as much as we do about it is because of the Virgin Media stories. As far as we know Andrew Cartmel never actually wrote up a Master Plan. He has denied that he ever did. I don't think we would ever have seen the loom story played on TV. For one thing it's quite complicated (remember it's a family show) and it a little bit seedy. There was also a lot of other stuff in those novels, including the fact that all time lords/ladies are sterile, ever since Rassilon pissed of some gypsies (something along those line). I doubt that would have made it to TV either.

Cartmel did, however, want to make the Doctor mysterious again. He has stated this explicitly. If there was a 'Masterplan', it was just that. Which is why you have those allusions to greater things in 'Silver Nemesis', 'Battlefield' and 'Remembrance of the Daleks'. In essence the 'Masterplan' should just be a basic rule of thumb for Doctor Who. The better we know the Doctor, the more we know about his past, the easier he is to understand... the less compelling he will be. Both Davies and Moffat have carried that idea forward.

And that's just some of the continuity from the novels. I haven't even started on the Big Finish canon, which severely fucks with the plots of a few new series stories.

It's a big old Whoniverse.

[Geoff_B]

Why would such a reletively juivinile and inexperienced Timelord have so much power?

I wouldn't call him juvenile and inexperienced - He's on his eleventh incarnation don't forget and he's only got two left. As for why he's got so much power, there are all these legends about him on every civilised world - some showing him as a complete monster, some showing him as the ultimate force for good.

And we don't get to see everything that he does as we are told about definite gaps in the story (The Waters of Mars -> The End of Time and The God Complex -> Closing Time for example).

As for the idea that the Doctor is the reincarnation of the Other I don't really like it. It seems to make more sense to me that the Doctor himself was there with Omega and Rassilon at the beginning.

I did have one theory at one point that when the Doctor was with Omega and Rassilon he was a warlord, conquering planets all across time and space (it fits in with the original Time Lord's ways before their prime directives came into play). Then he was finally caught and put on trial and his punishment was a complete new regeneration cycle (we know this is possible becuse the same thing was offered to the Master in the Five Doctors) with his memories wiped and his personality completely altered so that he would do good instead of evil. That would also explain why they brought him back to fight in the time war - he was already an experienced soldier.

So that way you still get the legends of the monster coming to destroy your world and the great physician who heals all wrongs.

That's probably complete nonsense but it makes sense to me at least.

[Lyinginbedmon]

There's a lot of theories running around and a lot of things you could piece together pretty well over the long, long run of Doctor Who.

But in truth, I think there's only really one thing we can trust:


He's the Doctor.


Personally, I like it that way. The day he actually gets a definitive backstory there'll be something important lost from his character. As it is now, he is a simple-minded force of nature wandering about the universe, making things tick in the right direction.

[Geoff_B]

^ That.

Actually the best summing up of the Doctor for me has to be this:

I am the Doctor

[Keab42]

I tried to donate to get the crew to "sing" that for last year's DB, but they claimed they didn't know it. For shame!

[tbug]

I tried to donate to get the crew to "sing" that for last year's DB, but they claimed they didn't know it. For shame!

Sing what? The Doctor Who theme? The Pertwee voiceover? Something else?

Should I be rehearsing?

[ThrashJazzAssassin]

Man, I love Pertwee. Even though I can never quite disassociate his voice from Chief Petty Officer Pertwee in the Navy Lark.

I did have one theory at one point that when the Doctor was with Omega and Rassilon he was a warlord, conquering planets all across time and space (it fits in with the original Time Lord's ways before their prime directives came into play). Then he was finally caught and put on trial and his punishment was a complete new regeneration cycle (we know this is possible becuse the same thing was offered to the Master in the Five Doctors) with his memories wiped and his personality completely altered so that he would do good instead of evil. That would also explain why they brought him back to fight in the time war - he was already an experienced soldier.

So that way you still get the legends of the monster coming to destroy your world and the great physician who heals all wrongs.

But again, his actions on-screen are those of both saviour and destroyer. He tries to help everyone, but is merciless towards those who refuse to listen. It's not necessary to invent a backstory to explain that.