The Dr Who thread

Governmentyard · Post by **Governmentyard** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 1:36 am 0

Harlequin wrote: Are you perhaps thinking of this and this?

I wasn't, but those'll come in rather handy all the same.

Alarm · Post by **Alarm** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 9:53 am 0

That was fantastic. Quite possibly the best episode of New Who so far. I'm looking forward to next week's 'Doctor light' episode.

Bog · Post by **Bog** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 11:53 am 0

Alarm wrote:That was fantastic. Quite possibly the best episode of New Who so far. I'm looking forward to next week's 'Doctor light' episode.

Doctor Light? What, sugar-free? Or a filler ep concentrating on the soap opera aspects of Martha's dysfunctional family?

Maybe it's because I had a ballsed-up home-life that I don't want to watch that kind of stuff. I don't find it fascinating, I find it as boring and irritating as I did when it was actually happenning to me.

limb_clock · Post by **limb_clock** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 11:55 am 0

*sniff*

I hope that someday The Doctor can find true love

HGFB · Post by **HGFB** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 11:56 am 0

No Bog. It's not about Martha's family.

Bog · Post by **Bog** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 12:21 pm 0

HGFB wrote:No Bog. It's not about Martha's family.

You've put a smile on this jaded old bastard's face, 'Gate. Thanks.

HGFB · Post by **HGFB** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 1:43 pm 0

I'm not sure what the problem is with Martha's family anyway. The only thing they've used them for is having her mother side with Saxon. So I guess you won't be watching the last 2 episodes then?

SimonB · Post by **SimonB** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 1:50 pm 0

Superb episode. Even MrsB had to wipe her eyes at the end, which says all you need to know.

Bog · Post by **Bog** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 1:52 pm 0

HGFB wrote:I'm not sure what the problem is with Martha's family anyway. The only thing they've used them for is having her mother side with Saxon. So I guess you won't be watching the last 2 episodes then?

I suppose it's more a concern than a complaint at this point. I'm worried that we might get lots more "Martha's Family" than we've had so far, because it'd be a really easy path to go down. They haven't yet, and I'm glad of that, it's just the "Doctor Light" comment had me concerned that it'd all be arguing parents, whinging trophy totty and dear gh0d make it stop

There's plenty of other telly that, and I'd rather it didn't contaminate the tiny shred of sci-fi that currently exists, that's all.

So what's the deal with the next ep, then?

HGFB · Post by **HGFB** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 1:57 pm 0

Killer statues as written by Steven Moffat. You remember him. Writer of 3 of the best episodes of new Who. I posted a picture from it a page or so back.

Then we have Captain Jack in the year 100 trillion. After that the 2 part finale with Martha's family. Horror!

Bog · Post by **Bog** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 2:22 pm 0

I fear that one of us may be over-reacting, just a smidgeon

DutchLlama · Post by **DutchLlama** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 2:57 pm 0

I agree with Bog. I'd rather have them act as if the Doctor's companions were orphans. You never heard Sarah Jane Smith or Jo Grant talk about their family relations IIRC.

Besides Martha's family were irritating on first sight (not even Jackie and Mickey acheived that). You can understand why she would leave them on the spot to go join the Doctor.

The only thing I don't understand is why she walks away from medical school after studying for a doctor for years (and medical studies are about the longest there are, it takes 9 years to become a general practitioner and up to 12 years to become a specialist). You don't want to run away from that unless you are feeling hopeless about your chances in succeeding or feel you're just not cut out being a doctor .

Bog · Post by **Bog** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 3:19 pm 0

Anyone who wouldn't go with the Doctor at the drop of a jellybaby is barking mad, regardless of the life or career they leave behind.

In my arrogant opinion, anyway

Besides, the Doctor's pretty much demonstrated that he can plop Martha back 5 seconds after she left, anyway. It's not just me, is it, the TARDIS has been far better behaved in terms of "Going when and where it's told" over the last three seasons than previously?

Gorecki · Post by **Gorecki** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 3:40 pm 0

DutchLlama wrote:You don't want to run away from that unless you are feeling hopeless about your chances in succeeding or feel you're just not cut out being a doctor .

Or because you fall in love.

Anyway, families in Doctor Who. See, the thing is, when writing science fiction, any idiot who can operate a wordprocessor and has watched Star Wars and a few episodes of Star Trek can bang out any old hokum about Timelords or Jedi's or aliens or spaceships and make it work. Because you're working outside the realms of human experience you can make up any old rubbish and make it stick because, yknow, it's aliens or time travel or quantums and how do you know it doesn't work like that.

But that doesn't make it mean anything and that's where the writing skill comes in. You can say that one planet is twelvety bajillion light seconds away from another planet but unless the author explains why that's a significant/insignificant amount to the reader then it'll remain just a number on a piece of paper.

So it's all very well having a character who can travel anywhere in time and space, is the very last of his species and is the only survivor of the most important and bloody war the universe has ever seen but it means nothing if you can't get people to relate to it.

So how do you get the importance and magnitude of stuff across to the public? You use juxtaposition, metaphor and analogy. If really want to emphasise the distance between two planets you get two marbles take one to the Lands End and the other to John O'Groats and say that if that's to scale then it's still not even close. If you want to show how lonely the Doctor is then you don't give him another lonely person to mope about with because being the last of your entire species hardly compares with being an orphan or just not having any friends. Instead, you give him someone who has everything he doesn't and see how he reacts to it. The Doctor doesn't have a family, so you give his companion a family. The Doctor has no home so you give his companion somewhere to return to. The Doctor has nothing to live for other than his ideals so you give his companion something real and concrete to care about and to love.

That's the best way to show how extraordinary and unique he is. Some of the best scene's over the past few series have involved Martha and Rose struggling to come to terms with the effect the Doctor is having on their lives and their families. They've shown just how utterly amazing the Doctors life is and without them bouncing around in time and space would seem no more incredible than hopping on the Eurostar and ending up in France for the weekend.

offyoutoddle · Post by **offyoutoddle** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 8:34 pm 0

DutchLlama wrote:
Besides Martha's family were irritating on first sight (not even Jackie and Mickey acheived that). You can understand why she would leave them on the spot to go join the Doctor.

sorry I couldn't agree less. Mickey's badly acted buffoonery was an instant episode killer from series 1 pilot on. Although if I'm honest, I can't remember when Jackie got on my nerves. Probably when she first opened her mouth though.