Doctor Who *Spoilers Abound! We've lost Containment*

Still enjoying the hell out of your reaction, Stele. I want to say, "wait until you see what's next!" but I know it won't be too long before you sneak it in. Remember, there was a big long gap of several months between this episode and the next for those of us watching the original airings as they happened. Quite a place to stop a story, and what a way to do it.

But here's one for you anyway: any reaction to seeing that title card, "The Doctor will return in 'Let's Kill Hitler'"? Between the insanity of the mid-season finale and the insanity of that title, my own reaction was very much one of, "This is the best, craziest sci-fi/fantasy adventure show on TV and I can't wait to see what the hell that title means!" I mean, just sheer delight on my end. How was it on yours?

sometimesdee wrote:

Series 7 (so far) as a photo summary

Ok, the spoiler tags are definitely getting over the top now! I assume that it was meant to be coded as a link, but it made me laugh.

spider_j wrote:
sometimesdee wrote:

Series 7 (so far) as a photo summary

Ok, the spoiler tags are definitely getting over the top now! I assume that it was meant to be coded as a link, but it made me laugh.

No, it wasn't. You can't put images in spoiler tags, so I put the URL in there. You have to admit that the image itself is a big spoiler.

Stele wrote:

(After "A Good Man Goes To War")

Thank goodness our in-laws got here tired from the plane and went to bed early so we could sneak in this one ep tonight. Awesome place for a break if we have to take one. Like a mid-season finale of sorts.

Actually, that's exactly what it was.

Series 6 was split into two parts. The first seven episodes aired, once per week, starting at the end of April. "A Good Man Goes To War" was the last of those to air, on June 4th. "Let's Kill Hitler" was the first episode of the second half of the season - it didn't air until August 27th.

So look at it this way - even if you have to take a small break, at least you don't have to wait almost three months to see what's going to happen next!

Yeah, wait until you're all caught up, Stele, and then have to wait like the rest of us suckers.

Yeah, and also when you can't passive-aggressively brand us all heartless d*ckheads by spoiler-tagging stuff about episodes that aired a good long while ago.

ianunderhill wrote:

Yeah, and also when you can't passive-aggressively brand us all heartless d*ckheads by spoiler-tagging stuff about episodes that aired a good long while ago. ;)

Spoiler:

Susan's grandfather is called The Doctor, not Doctor Foreman. He has a time-traveling spaceship which is bigger on the inside.

LouZiffer wrote:
ianunderhill wrote:

Yeah, and also when you can't passive-aggressively brand us all heartless d*ckheads by spoiler-tagging stuff about episodes that aired a good long while ago. ;)

Spoiler:

Susan's grandfather is called The Doctor, not Doctor Foreman. He has a time-traveling spaceship which is bigger on the inside.

Well played, Sir.

A book tie-in to The Angels Take Manhattan is available as an e-book. (Amazon, Amazon.co.uk, iBooks).

(Not the book the Doctor was reading during the show.)

Katy wrote:

A book tie-in to The Angels Take Manhattan is available as an e-book. (Amazon, Amazon.co.uk, iBooks).

(Not the book the Doctor was reading during the show.)

Yup. It was short and sweet, though it leaves too many questions.

Spoiler:

How do Angels change people's bodies?!

IMAGE(https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/523894_486796908019884_2125180764_n.jpg)

davet010 wrote:
Atomicvideohead wrote:

Doctor Who: High on emotion, Low on sense. I've given up on it being logically consistent. Shame really. I guess it's all frosting now, no more cake.

Since when has Doctor Who been 'logically consistent' ? It's about a bloke in a trans-dimensional box travelling through time and space.

Considering it's a show which is, you know, designed to frighten children with scary monsters, it's hard to expect much more from it.

I find it kind of amusing when people bemoan its logical inconsistencies in detail - they're always there, it's just a question of how much attention you give them. The show is at its best when you get swept up in whatever madness is happening, and simply forget about how little sense it all makes.

P.S. to "The Angels Take Manhattan" - the un-shot scene involving Brian.

UBER-SPOILER for Episode 7.5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWU6X...

Man it's really dusty in here...

sometimesdee wrote:

P.S. to "The Angels Take Manhattan" - the un-shot scene involving Brian.

UBER-SPOILER for Episode 7.5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWU6X...

Man, that would've been a knockout. Hard to fit space-wise, and tough to have enough weight as we'd only met Brian twice, but...still, wow. Thanks for sharing.

OMG ADORABLE. Thanks!

gore wrote:
davet010 wrote:
Atomicvideohead wrote:

Doctor Who: High on emotion, Low on sense. I've given up on it being logically consistent. Shame really. I guess it's all frosting now, no more cake.

Since when has Doctor Who been 'logically consistent' ? It's about a bloke in a trans-dimensional box travelling through time and space.

Considering it's a show which is, you know, designed to frighten children with scary monsters, it's hard to expect much more from it.

I find it kind of amusing when people bemoan its logical inconsistencies in detail - they're always there, it's just a question of how much attention you give them. The show is at its best when you get swept up in whatever madness is happening, and simply forget about how little sense it all makes.

Story telling is story telling. Regardless of content and audience, there's a craft to it. Shoddy craftsmanship shouldn't be excused just because the show is for children.

Even though it's clearly not for children. Well not for them specifically. Children are incidental bonuses to the main audience. Us.

Atomicvideohead wrote:

Story telling is story telling. Regardless of content and audience, there's a craft to it. Shoddy craftsmanship shouldn't be excused just because the show is for children.

Fair enough, but even when the show is at its best, it's still filled with plot holes and deus ex machinae. I do think people are more likely to notice and/or care about continuity errors when it's failing on some other level.

Even though it's clearly not for children. Well not for them specifically. Children are incidental bonuses to the main audience. Us.

I always thought of it like Pixar films: made for all ages to enjoy, but with children always the primary target. It feels (to me) most squarely aimed at a slightly older, pre-teen demographic.

I'd say it's a Family show, not a Children's show, which is a subtle but important distinction.

And I feel like what fandom culture increasingly calls "logical consistency" would be an albatross around the show's neck.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

I'd say it's a Family show, not a Children's show, which is a subtle but important distinction.

And I feel like what fandom culture increasingly calls "logical consistency" would be an albatross around the show's neck.

I think that, from a plot standpoint, there needs to be enough internal consistency that I'm not confronted with an obvious paradox from what's explicitly presented in the show, or unreasonable not to infer. Ironically, this often means that the more information I am presented with, the less likely I am to find a show acceptably plausible.

The biggest problems here tend to be earth-based stories, because there's so much external context I can import. For instance, in The Burning Sky, they made repeated efforts to the fact that what was going on was real, actual sky combustion, not some other magitechnical process that resembled sky-burning, but only happened in the upper atmosphere because magic. So I found it a little dopey that the Doctor would gleefully start a combusting the atmosphere, since that air I'm breathing is the same atmosphere and it would, you know, char us all to a crisp. Then it didn't happen, and I felt like I wasn't supposed to care or think even a little bit about it, which kind of offends me. Writing something that they don't want people to think much about is pretty much the definition of hackery.

If he'd just called it a Sontaran plasmastorm generator or something, though, I would have been cool. How should I know what the rules of a plasma storm are?

I had a similar problem with The Power of Three, when they go out of their way to say the cubes are giving people massive cardiac arrest, and people fall down struck on the ground. Then we spend fifteen minutes or so figuring out what's going on, while these people are undergoing a massive cardiac event, until the Doctor waves the magic wand around and fixes it. And then everyone recovers from their heart attacks and concomitant lack of oxygen to the brain and goes their merry way.

But blood control? No problem. Sure, you can make people climb to the top of buildings because you have some DNA they're tangentially associated with. Why not? It's some thing called "blood control," not this heart attack thing, which I know a thing or two about.

If they hadn't mentioned that people's hearts were stopped—if they just said they'd "zapped them with a stasis ray" or something—I'm back in the game.

Most people think I'm a bloodless funhater when I elaborate on this; sorry. But that's my floor for "logical consistency." If you can choose not to tell me something that flatly contradicts what's going on within the show, I'm cool. If you can't, I'm not.

sometimesdee wrote:

P.S. to "The Angels Take Manhattan" - the un-shot scene involving Brian.

UBER-SPOILER for Episode 7.5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWU6X...

Damned allergies.

spider_j wrote:
sometimesdee wrote:

P.S. to "The Angels Take Manhattan" - the un-shot scene involving Brian.

UBER-SPOILER for Episode 7.5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWU6X...

Damned allergies.

Thanks for sharing that. As I mentioned in the thread at the time, that was my son's first question.

Which Goodjer forgot to dust my room!!! That was nice.

I don't understand how that didn't make it into the episode.

That's canon for me.

Whew. In-laws gone, so Doctor marathons the last two nights. Season 6 is done!

Let's Kill Hitler:

Spoiler:

Holy frak. Daughter best friend, named for herself.

And wow, no more regeneration for River/Melody. Which finally clears up why she couldn't regenerate in the episode we first met her.

Also, time justice whatever, I forget the name... what a mess. But clearly adds another option besides the flesh copies for the Doctor to cheat death. :cool:

Night Terrors:

Spoiler:

Another solid horror episode. It was obvious when Amy and Rory disappeared what was going on to me, that they were in the cupboard. Ah well, still fun to watch.

The Girl Who Waited:

Spoiler:

Poor Amy. I was pretty sure the Doctor was not going to cause a paradox, but we did see the Master pull that with the TARDIS before.

The God Complex:

Spoiler:

More horror episode.

Also were some of the pictures people he met? Cat nurse, etc? If so, was their faith in the Doctor responsible for them ending up there? Just really dangerous to know him. :(

Closing Time:

Spoiler:

Craig! I love Craig! Partner, companion, whatever.

Tons of funny stuff in this ep. Baby talk, new house, Doctor's job, on and on. :lol:

The Wedding of River Song:

Spoiler:

Holy crap. All time screwed up. Fun to see Churchill again.

Loved Amy finally realizing Captain Williams was Rory.

Tricked us with the wedding bit. Sure thought he was saying his name. Still seems like that's what she had to have said to him when they first met.

Still, nice reveal of the Doctor still alive. And cool that River got to spend some time with her parents.

The Doctor, The Widow, and The Wardrobe:

Spoiler:

Interesting Christmas episode. No robots. Not current holiday. Definitely different from all the previous ones.

But the final scene is my favorite of any Christmas special. Maybe any episode. They always set a place for him. Aww.

He is family, after all. He should show up for Christmas.

Should catch up to the rest of you this week. Only 5 episodes. Going to miss the marathons.

Stele wrote:

Should catch up to the rest of you this week. Only 5 episodes. Going to miss the marathons. :(

Just make sure you have tissues handy for the last one. Ya know, for your allergies.

Congrats, Stele! Sorry you're closer to being stuck waiting with the rest of us, but it's a lot of fun watching someone else's time on the ride. Thanks again for sharing your reactions.

sometimesdee wrote:

P.S. to "The Angels Take Manhattan" - the un-shot scene involving Brian.

UBER-SPOILER for Episode 7.5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWU6X...

That was great!

We're caught up now.

Not really any words tonight. Going to be a long wait until Christmas.

I'll read some of this thread from the last month or two that I was avoiding, and check back in later.