The Dr Who thread

Zoot · Post by **Zoot** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 11:41 pm 0

Seriously, who the fuck cares how Pete knew how to get there on time? He didn't, probably, but was getting so much earache from Jackie about letting Rose go that he thought that he should give it *one more go*. And he got lucky.

Fucksakes - was it not worth it for the look on Rose's face - did she think that she would be better off dead than seperated from the doctor?

It's TV, FFS, and it made me happy, sad, emotional, made me wave my hand in the air shouting "YEEEASSSSSSS!", and made me think that it was good.

For me, it was enough....................

Governmentyard · Post by **Governmentyard** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 11:58 pm 0

We probably aren't meant to like her. We'll be firmly behind the Doctor and the Doctor alone, however much we might enjoy the next companion, after the Xmas special - that'll be what it is for, arc plot wise - a lot of people liked Rose as much as the Doctor and that can't be allowed to linger too long. A dodgy near-companion to clear the pallet before thingy next year? I reckon.

Matrixxx · Post by **Matrixxx** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 1:09 am 0

Some people just wanted to see Billie sucked off into the void where she would either:

A) Explode
B) Implode
C) Cease to be instantly
D) hang there in the void jerking through lack of oxygene

There's some ev1l twats on this board for sure.

juice · Post by **juice** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 1:26 am 0

phattslagg wrote:
Ollie wrote:
phattslagg wrote: Now stop getting so worked up about such tiny things
Sod off. It's not a tiny thing.
Yes it is. I'd wager it's nearly as tiny as your ability to suspend your disbelief

I've been resisting the urge to jump into this flame-fest. But hey

First, though: this isn't a poke at Dr Who specifically: it's an issue I have with the film/tv industry at general.

Personally, I'm quite happy to suspend my disbelief, as long as the story is internally consistent. As long as that's true, then fine: I'll believe in magic, talking animals, teleporting phone-boxes and the like.

I don't care how strange, stupid or insane something is, as long as it makes sense within the given context. If it doesn't, then it'll jar me out of the tale and back into reality.

Indeed, I'd personally argue that lack of consistency is a sign of lazy writing - which is a sign that the people making the show maybe don't care as much as they should, about either the audience or the subject matter.

It could even be seen as insulting, if you want to draw the logical conclusion from the fact that they don't see the need to spend the extra effort...

How would you feel if you took your car for a service and discovered that they hadn't replaced the oil filters, because they couldn't be bothered? Or maybe they changed the oil filters, but poured the old oil back in, because they figured you probably wouldn't notice?[1]

Take the Matrix: instead of "humans as batteries", it would have taken milliseconds to come up with "humans as extra CPU/storage for the AI" (a la Hyperion), which would have given the writers extra possibilities - such as how the matrix worked, and why Neo could override the Matrix. It also would have stopped anyone with a clue about biology or physics from sniggering uncontrollably.

Or Star Wars: instead of the mess which finished off episodes 1-3, how about using something a film critic suggested: make Darth Vader a knowing accomplice in the efforts to hide his children. That would have solved all the plot inconsistencies with R2-D2/C3P0, and it would have also given an extra dimension to the battles in ESB/ROTJ between Vader and Kenobi, Luke and Vader and finally the Emperor vs Luke and Vader.

Or the final teleport in Dr Who (to go back to where all this started). Maybe they could have shown some sort of monitoring device on the alternative world side which her dad could have used to identify what was happening.

(And maybe they could have come up with a plausible way for the Doctor to have triggered both levers if Rose hadn't returned, too

)

It *is* possible to make a script internally consistent, and it is possible for stories to not rely on a.n.other Deus Ex Machina to try and hide the holes in the plotline. And when scriptwriters fail to spend that little bit of extra effort, people like Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and Leo Tolstoy spin in their grave a bit more...

Some people have a higher tolerance of this kind of stuff. Fair enough - to use another metaphor: sometimes I like to buy a kebab at 3am, or a burger from a stand in the Sunday Market. There's more to food than processed meat and cheap bread, however, and I wouldn't be impressed if I walked into a restaurant and got exactly the same stuff slapped onto a plate [2]. In the same vein, I expect certain things from the BBC, less from Sky and virtually nothing from Channel 5

Back to the original question: are my standards too high, or are theirs too low? Who knows?

In the end, it's each to their own, as always, and there's always the option of voting with your feet, if you don't like something.

[1] Maybe not an ideal metaphor, but close enough: you've paid for the media, whether it's through the licence fee, watching the advertising or buying a cinema ticket/DVD/CD/MP3: shouldn't you be expecting the creators to put some effort into making it?

[2] Which actually happened, in Blackpool - you could see the staff phoning the orders out, taking the deliveries and tipping the food from the containers and onto the plates. They even had the cheek to bring out a "3L for Â£1.50" bottle of Strongbow cider out, when my friend asked for a drink, and then charged him Â£2 a glass! We didn't exactly leave much of a tip behind...

juice · Post by **juice** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 1:31 am 0

goatboy wrote:We probably aren't meant to like her. We'll be firmly behind the Doctor and the Doctor alone, however much we might enjoy the next companion, after the Xmas special - that'll be what it is for, arc plot wise - a lot of people liked Rose as much as the Doctor and that can't be allowed to linger too long. A dodgy near-companion to clear the pallet before thingy next year? I reckon.

I suspect you're right: RTD certainly cleared the decks of virtually all the people introduced in the last 2 series - and he also set things up so that it'll be very unlikely that the Doctor will have any more romantic relationships in the next series or two.

Which, in my more optimistic moods, could mean that a) we'll have some proper adventuring and b) we'll get away from London/Cardiff for a bit!

Post by **Snakey** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 2:18 am 0

Duck Turkin wrote:The 'big clue' is that to reach the alternate universe you had to travel through the void

..except it was clearly stated that the Tardis 'fell through a crack' - in other words, it won't have been in the void very long at all, it fell right through and came out the other side. A bit different to something that sat in the void for many years, no ?

Seemed totally obvious (and not at all inconsistent) to me. The Tardis, which at best would have a very small amount of 'void stuff', was a significant distance from the 'void hole', and therefore it wasn't affected.

But yeah, who gives a shit either way. I just think that sometimes people try to find holes where there really isn't any, is all

Firefox · Post by **Firefox** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 7:33 am 0

juice wrote:Take the Matrix: instead of "humans as batteries", it would have taken milliseconds to come up with "humans as extra CPU/storage for the AI" (a la Hyperion), which would have given the writers extra possibilities - such as how the matrix worked, and why Neo could override the Matrix. It also would have stopped anyone with a clue about biology or physics from sniggering uncontrollably.

Well, that was the original idea. But they decided that the majority of cinema-goers are a bit too fik to understand something like that, but that most of them could sort of get their head around Morpheus holding up a Duracell battery.

Matrixxx wrote:Some people just wanted to see Billie sucked off

Kenz · Post by **Kenz** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 8:08 am 0

Great episode btw. I almost cried ... a bit!

Ollie · Post by **Ollie** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 9:55 am 0

Anyone know, btw, how one is supposed to go about registering for the Outpost Gallifrey forums - or if it's possible to read them without registering? When I try to register I get a "Registration has been suspended" message.

HGFB · Post by **HGFB** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 10:01 am 0

Email the site owner Shaun. He closes registration on Saturdays the show airs but he might have forgotten to turn it back on again. You can't read without registering.

Bog · Post by **Bog** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 10:23 am 0

IIRC, the Doctor said that people used to zip around parallel universes all the time, before the death of the Time Lords. Therefore, TARDISes would have the ability to either self-clean to get void-stuff off them, or know how to compensate for being covered with it.

It is, after all, the best ship in the universe.

KlaxonCow · Post by **KlaxonCow** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 12:03 pm 0

Mayhem wrote:Quick question... given everything with void stuff on it got pulled through, why didn't the Tardis?

In the "Satan Pit" double episodes, we see the TARDIS resist being sucked into a black hole.

Now, judging by: The speed the Daleks were sucked back into the void, the fact we see no "stretching" of spacetime being caused by this pull (the Daleks would have elongated in shape if this were a black hole's insanely gigantic gravitiational pull, as it warps and stretches spacetime itself), that the Daleks and Cybermen were drawn back to the points where they came from (rather than a singularity, as with a black hole) and that - even with the help of the clamps - the Rose and the Doctor had any chance at all of holding on, the void's "pull" could not have been predominently gravitational and, in comparison to a black hole, it's not even marginally close to being anywhere near in the same league as a black hole (e.g. light and time and space cannot resist the gravitational pull of a black hole beyond its event horizon. No fucking way could you even come close to "holding on to a clamp" to stop yourself falling in).

If the TARDIS can resist a black hole then it could piss all over resisting the "suck" from this comparatively pathetic "void" (no, that's not to say the void's pull was relatively weak - you saw what it could do - but just to emphasise how insanely strong the pull of a black hole is. If you thought the void's pull was impressive then, in the words of Turner Overdrive, "you ain't seen nothing yet" when it comes to black holes).

As no-one complained in the earlier episode about the TARDIS's seemingly impossible feat of not getting sucked into a black hole, then I presume you accepted the TARDIS can do that kind of thing.

Well, it did the same thing again. Except, this time, it was even easer to resist the "pull" because it was comparatively weak.

Black holes are well hard. If the TARDIS can kick a black hole's arse then it can kick anyone's arse when it comes to being physically pulled around.

xav · Post by **xav** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 5:32 pm 0

juice wrote:and virtually nothing from Channel 5

But they've got House, which is good enough for me to forgive them any past misdemeanors.

Apparently they've got some other programs as well, but I don't watch them because they're all crap.

offyoutoddle · Post by **offyoutoddle** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 5:37 pm 0

A little reminder of why this episode was good -

The Doctor said to the Daleks about living alone in a metal cage from birth to death - that explains your voices. That's why you scream!

Classic. Best line ever said to a Dalek, after Ecclestone last season shouting 'why don't you just DIEE!!!'

moosedude · Post by **moosedude** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 5:48 pm 0

Has some other pervert mentioned yet that whilst billy was being suck into the void and holding on for dear life, why her clothes obviously didn't come off first? Approaching it for the science angle, if "void radiation" is like water, then it is likely that her clothes would of absorbed more, and therefore the pull into the void would of been stronger.

as the Doctor would put it "I'm sorry, I'm so Sorry"; Although I have to say that got a little annoying when he was saying sorry to everybody just before he killed them.