New Season of Doctor Who (Spoilers Abound! Beware!)

<Split from The “I have nothing real to contribute, but I am sick of seeing no new posts” thread>

Anyone looking forward to the new season of Doctor Who?

I am.  The previews and mannerisms of the new doctor suggest he's more of a throwback, which I would personally love.  I think the show could really benefit from slowing down a bit and get away from the Sonic Screwdriver more.

Here's hoping.

THIS IS NOT A "NOTHING REAL TO CONTRIBUTE" TYPE SUBJECT, DOCTOR WHO IS ALL IMPORTANT!

I might be looking forward to it a teeny bit.

Huh, I could have sworn this thread was bigger on the inside earlier, did someone remove the dimensionally transcendental circuitry?

Nick and I are still working out how to see it, while still managing to be lazy.

It will be in some theaters.

I recommend the internet.

Or time travel, which ever is easier.

The theatres here are all after the fact, and can't watch it online unless it's illegally done.

Well, let's clarify that…

We'll be watching it online, but we have a VPN with a British IP specifically so spouse can watch her Dr. Who.

And it is legal.

I don't own a TV, but my B-i-L has a nice setup and like 8 billion channels so we bring food and watch at his place.

Remember what I said about being lazy? Lol

I've never personally had much issue with the Sonic. It is a magic wand, but most of the "science" in the show is gobbledygook anyway. It does seem like the pace is slowing down, and while I've actually enjoyed the high adrenaline action of the last few series, I do think a change of pace will be nice. The people who cheated and peaked at the leaked episodes have all spoken very highly of them, and so I'm pretty optimistic about this new series.

Also, somehow when I saw New Season I knew this thread was probably going to be about Doctor Who.

Looking forward to the new series here, too :D. Now I read this thread, I remember I had a dream abou Doctor Who last night…I think I was Clara (well, I was me, but I looked like Clara and that was my name) and the new Doctor was around somewhere…oh yeah, that was it, something like "This Doctor is more of a luck-based Doctor" like it was his special power or something, and something happened and he conveniently happened to be there or something, I can't really remember. And then there was something about a fight simulator game where you fired fake guns or something but there were Daleks in it and they were real and were converting/kidnapping people, and Eleven was there but he got tangled up under a duvet or something on the floor so couldn't be seen and was only making indistinct mumbling noises when Rose Tyler showed up looking to see if she could sort out the trouble or something, and then she buggered off, and then I was at work trying to wheel a trolley (a books trolley that we use, erm, to push the books around on) into the lift, which for some reason had no ceiling so I could see the mechanisms above it, and it was slowly going downward because the trolley was heavy even though I wanted to go up and the buttons weren't working properly or something. And I think some other stuff may have happened as well.

So umm…yeah. Anyway, new Doctor Who tomorrow, yaaaay :D.

I like the doctor a lot more when he gets creative about solutions and doesn't just sonic his way out of trouble.  Patrick Troughton is still my favoite doctor because he had all kinds of bizarre solutions to the littler problems.

I'd also love to see more 2-part stories, I love the old serials since you get so much development of the characters, the new ones are mostly monster of the week stories, which are cool, but I'd like some balance between them.

The main difference I would say is aesthetic. There's really no difference between having the Doctor press buttons on the alien ship saying, "I'm reversing the polarity of the neutron flow." or using the Sonic Screwdriver and saying, "I'm reversing the polarity of the neutron flow." Both are just as creative and do the same thing from a narrative standpoint. I understand where you're coming from though, and I do think they're probably going to take Capaldi in a different direction.

The finale is a two parter. So there's at least that. Having a return to serials would be interesting. The stories would be more complex, but there'd be less of them compared to the current format.

Just finished watching Deep Breath. I thought it was pretty good. I like the dynamic being set up between 12 and Clara. I think I prefer the Eleventh Hour, but series 8 is so far shaping up to be very interesting.

Quite the thinker of an episode. I really enjoyed it. They've done a decent job of transitioning Doctors. Leaving bits of 11 in as things that are fading from 12.

NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT THIS UNTIL I'VE SEEN IT

(all-caps for mock urgency)

Meh. Too cartoony an opening for me (complete with sound effects ), it got better as it progressed but I don't think this is an episode on which to judge the series (or the doctor). I'm not sure how the 'final fight' can be anything more than an annoyance, either he's a murderer now or the audience is being teased with no real pay off, and we've had both before.

I like the fact though that the final "fight" wasn't really a fight. It was a logical debate between two inhuman characters who are doing their best to imitate humanity. Whether the Doctor pushed the robot is an interesting question since this is a new Doctor we've never seen before, and the question being asked isn't whether or not there is a situation in which the Doctor will kill but rather how far is the Doctor willing to go to protect the planet and people he loves.

The 'fight' that was a debate is the Doctor's modus operandi, it was just a big change from when he actually fought during his last regeneration with his magical deus ex explody ship powers.

We already know that the doctor would kill to protect Earth (see Nine->Ten's Christmas Regen episode, The Christmas Invasion), the first doctor was (arguably) prepared to kill 'just' to stop the party being slowed down (see the first story ever, An Earthly Child), but by not giving us a resolution to the pushme/pullyou scene they turned it into a cop out to make it seem more adult after the last doctor's childish whimsey; if they wanted to show it, show it, either way the doctor wins, either he's shown to be a man of iron clad principles he will not cross but so skilled at out thinking his opponents that he's a threat even when unarmed, or he's a man who tries to stick to the path but occassional falls off, making his 'debating enemies to death' all the more impressive as we know he could take the 'easy' route but he's trying to fight against himself and the enemy at the same time.

I think part of the point is to differentiate from earlier debut episodes. With both Tennant and Smith we had a clear idea of who the Doctor was more or less by the end of the episode, but by not showing whether or not Capaldi pushed the android, who he is and what exactly his moral compass is hasn't been fully shown. Discovering what kind of person he's become is something that he and Clara will be doing for more than one episode. This is a Doctor you're supposed to be unsure of, and the way the jump scene was handled was very thematically appropriate for that.

Keep in mind that the Doctor could have thrown it out, knowing it would survive (possibly subconsciously).

If that was the intent then they failed (with me), I'm unsure of the writing and direction, not the doctor.

I think I have to agree with you, if the show wanted use to be undecided, the writing was quite poor. Consider the scene where the Doctor leaves Clara, did anybody really think that was going to really happen. The only way that scene even makes a little bit of sense is if the entire point of the scene was to tell you that he would never leave her and compromise his most basic principles.

The entire show was telling you about the Doctor's princples, and contrasting it with the villains. Both the Doctor and the villain were characters that could regenerate and come back to life, but in completely opposite ways. The villain would kill an entire creature just for a small part to stay alive. While the Doctor got an extra life for, seemingly, the sole purpose of protecting people.

If the final battle was supposed to be an actual question, the writing of the show simply didn't agree with it. Regardless, I have always felt that purposely not showing the audience something important (not something subtle) is always a sign of bad writing.

Or obvious trickery. Not showing a dead body, chances are they are not dead (which I guess amounts to bad writing anyway).

Oh! Thanks for reminding me about Clara. Clara doubting the doctor because he changed his face? When she has been with him through all his incarnations? Silly.

Clara's indecision doesn't really bother me. Just because you know something is going to happen, doesn't mean that it won't upset you when it does. She may have seen his other lives, but the Matt Smith Doctor was the first one she came to know, and she met his past selves with the knowledge that the Doctor she knew and familiar with was still around. She's familiar with the process of regeneration, but that doesn't mean she has no reason to be hurt when the Doctor she's known and befriended is suddenly gone and this strange person she doesn't know is there.

I personally liked how they handled the scene with the android. I think it sets the tone they want for this Doctor quite nicely, and I'll be interested to see if and how they incorporate it into later episodes.

One thing I did like is dealing with the issues of a romantic relationship head on. Both with Matt Smith's version and Peter Capaldi. In interviews leading up to the season, Peter Capaldi said there would be no romantic relatinship, and I really like how they addressed that issue. Especially, the explanation of why the Doctor now looks old. I think that one line set the tone for the entire season better than anything else in the episode.

Hurt at a loss and doubting they are the same person when you have seen them change multiple times by being with them every step of the way are not remotely the same.

If she had done things expecting the doctor to react in a certain way and he hadn't and then she reacted with disappointment, that's one thing. But being that at his rebirth after having seen what he was prepared to sacrificed with no personal gain* and treating him like a stranger, urg.

*Remember it was Clara who convinced Galifrey to help, not the doctor, he was there for hundreds of years and did not contact the people that he most wanted to for fear of unleashing war.

EDIT: She got her wish and was pissed about it. Ungrateful.

I can agree with this. It was a great exchange.

Except in a lot of ways the Doctor isn't the same person when he regenerates. Although some things stay the same, other things can change drastically which is something else Clara would've seen travelling through the Doctor's timeline and even with both Ten and the War Doctor. Again, she has no idea what this Doctor will be like now. She is profoundly hurt at the loss of her friend and has to come to terms with this new person.

And? He's not the same person but she knew it was going to be this way, she's seen and experienced it time and time again. She hurts from eleven's loss, she should be sad, but to blank 1.2 is just OTT for the character given everything she has experienced with all incarnations of the doctor before.

I should add some things that I did like about the episode so it's doesn't look like I'm just hating on it.

I did enjoy the exchange between the doctor and the robot when debating who's 'programming' would fall (even if I didn't enjoy the resolution), it set him up as a guy who thinks before acting, who is always thinking and noticing the small details even in the deadliest of dangers, which might be something that was downplayed from other doctors.

I also enjoyed Clara's exchange with the robot, not only because it showed that her faith in the doctor was rewarded but because she was able to draw on her experience from her 'regular' life to recognise a situation and apply it to an extraordinary one. her defiance while still being vulnerable was wonderfully played.

I don't think Clara remembers all her escapades through the doctor's timelines.  If she does, I don't think it is an active memory.

Capaldi vs. the Robot:  The Doctor has killed robots that are more human than that was many times.  Also if he did push the robot he didn't violate his ethics, he lied about them, that's what he said, "One of us lied."  Remember rule #1?  The doctor lies.

I liked his rough regeneration, because this wasn't just a new regeneration, this was a brand new set of regenerations.

I loved the phone call, that is so Matt Smith's doctor, always thinking outside his timeline.

I like Capaldi a lot, the pace slowed, the characters solved problems creatively, the Doctor was arrogant but not intentionally insulting.  It was great.  Here's hoping we don't get another season of "Show that was even more EPIC than the last show!"  Then I'll be a very happy camper.

It makes sense. Again, just because you're prepared for something beforehand doesn't mean you'll handle it perfectly when it does actually happen. It's kind of like the audience of the show. By now, we should all be prepared for when a new Doctor comes and be open minded about it, but there's always scrutiny and a portion of the fanbase instantly writing off the new Doctor even though this has happened several times before.

Overall, I really enjoyed this episode, mainly because I don't especially like Clara, and never had. It spent a lot of time dogging on her, and that's always a win. :-)

My biggest issue? The giant hammer that kept hitting me on the head to remind me that Vastra and Jenny are married. I get it, Jenny's wife has a cloaca; moving on. Wasn't this made clear enough before?

However, I do enjoy the Vastra/Jenny/Strax episodes. They always seem to crop up when The Doctor doesn't know what he's doing or who he is. Vastra has been nicely set up to be the compass he checks when he's lost, and she's the perfect one to do that.

“Abound”? Nice word choice!

Thanks. It's high on my list of words that are fun to say.

What other words are on that list?

Embolism, disgruntled, bituminous, epiglottis, funky, and many more.

Well, out of all of those, "abound" works the best in the title.

I'm having a lot of difficulty liking Clara. I don't have much of a sense of who she is or why she does what she does. I mostly got Rose, and liked her. I thought Martha started pathetic but eventually redeemed herself. I got Donna and though I didn't always like her brashness, sometimes I loved it. I got Amy, didn't really like her at first, but came to adore her. Clara started fantastic, in her Souflee girl and Victorian lifetimes, but quickly became unremarkable.

I see some promise in #12, but didn't enjoy very much of him in the first episode. It looks like his arc will be quite dark, which isn't really my favorite. No, that's not it. I think what I'm missing from Capaldi's doctor so far is a sense of fun. Is he interested in having fun? So far he seems desparate to find himself and to atone. Worthy goals, perhaps, but not fun. He's got a bit of slapstick and wittiness, but those, for me, are a poor replacement for glee.

I agree, I think they hit it harder this episode because of the whole "New to Who" angle they've been pushing and if they are going to be major characters this season they need to catch everyone up on the prior beatings.

They also seem to be running a parallel between Vastra and Jenny and Clara and the Doctor.  We'll see where they go with it.

I was about 15% watching it - Michael enjoys it but I'm not really a fan. I have to say Clara irritates me but then Amy did too. I think they "sound" so similar at times with the way they both don't seem to have real conversations, just recite snappy little comments back and forth in a way I assume is supposed to be funny. Like they aren't even listening and responding, because it's so, glib, I guess.

They both seem to put a weird amount of unnecessary emphasis on the second syllable of "Doctor" when they shout, too. "Doc-TEH!" It just sounds strange. And irritating.

I'm not a Clara fan, wasn't an Amy fan or a Rose fan.  Liked Donna and Martha Jones.  But I don't like most companions, they run around and tell us how cool the doctor is.  I like the Companions that have their own input and don't wait around for the doctor to do stuff.

Ugh. Martha is at the bottom of my list.

Not that fun to say?

I'm one of those weird people that actually likes Clara. I just find her a very enjoyable character and was intrigued by the plot arc that introduced her. Part of it is just that Jenna Coleman brings a fun, vibrant energy to the character that's fun to watch. I was never a huge fan of Rose. I know she's supposed to be relatable, but I never really connected with her. Her mother was a much more interesting character. The only times I found Rose interesting were in the episodes relating to her father. I got really bored with the eternal puppy love she and Tennant were in during series 2. I actually like Martha, but her potential as a character was a bit wasted. I also enjoyed Amy a lot. There are similarities between Clara and Amy but both characters expressed these traits differently. Amy was damaged and generally emotionally forceful. Clara, on the other hand, tends to get what she wants by using logic and using her words and her mind to manipulate and trap the Doctor, although it doesn't look like she'll be able to do that with Capaldi Doc.

So far, I'm liking Capaldi. He's definitely making the character his own, and I at least had fun watching him interact with the other characters.

Martha is awful, can’t stand her, she was such an incredibly badly written character, especially when she came back in the Donna episodes. Its like they wanted to make a strong capable character so put it all in backstory and then never actually showed it. Can’t think of anything redeeming her.
Although to be fair to her, her most prominent moment was in setting up the unforgivably bad tinkerbell Jesus Doctor.

Clara on the other hand is just meh, she had such an amazing introduction as the souffle girl, but when it came time to be an actual companion was nothing but a generic dull disappointment. This episode has probably been her best as a companion so far.

Anyone else like the scarf comment?

I giggled. But I guffawed about "attack eyebrows" that are "independently cross."

Fantastic idea for a movie, terrible idea for a proctologist.

You are a good Dalek.

So I semi-watched the last episode - I was playing games on my tablet but mostly listening. And as soon as they said "good Dalek" and "let's go inside it and make it better" I was pretty sure they were going to turn it evil again.

Note to writers: if your plot is obvious enough that even a non-fan who's only partially paying attention figures it out right away, it might be too obvious.

Your mum's a good Dalek.

Good episode, but the whole "The Doctor is a better Dalek than the Daleks" angle is a bit played out by now, isn't it?

I did like that the Dalek converted, that was prety cool.

It also annoyed me that the Doctor would ever confuse a Dalek wanting to annihilate its own kind with goodness.

This is true, but I liked what they ended up doing with it in the end. I would've been more annoyed if the Dalek had turned out to only be pretending to be good to lure the humans into a false sense of security.

Not good Dalek, like "you are a great Dalek," but GOOD, like, "you are a Dalek that is doing good."

That's what I got from it. A slight variation of the "we aren't so different" trope.

My problem was that it wasn't a Dalek that was doing good.

Genocide is a bad thing, it doesn't suddenly become a moral plus if you are targetting the enemy for annihilation.

A friend of mine pointed out that the Doctor has encountered multiple 'good' Daleks before, he helped create some as far back as The Evil of the Daleks (Second Doctor), <sarcasm>huzzah for continuity!</sarcasm>

They didn't treat it as a moral plus. The point of the episode was that even though the Doctor succeeded in getting the Dalek to fight for the human race, he hadn't really achieved his objective of turning it good. The Doctor even says this near the end of the episode before the "You are a Good Dalek" line. The humans treat the development as a moral plus simply because they're in a war, and the morality of a Dalek committing genocide on other Daleks isn't something that's bothering them. 

When they believed it might have turned good it obviously hadn't.

It was the birth of a star and realized that the Daleks could not destroy all non-dalek life, that the Daleks would ultimitely lose therefore he was on the losing side.  So he changed sides.

Then in the end the Dalek is converted through what amounts to a religious experience of encountering hatred so pure and beautiful (to he Dalek) that he converted to that hatred, forsaking his native hatred.

There was no real attempt to turn the Dalek good at all.  Morality was never a relevant issue, yet it dominated the context.

Oh, I see what you were talking about. There was still an attempt to turn it good. That was the point of the Doctor showing the Dalek his own consciousness. It just didn't turn out the way he wanted. Just because the attempt failed, doesn't mean it wasn't there. Morality is still a relevant issue. The Doctor wanted to make a morally good Dalek but failed because of his own moral failings.

I may have to rewatch that part, because it came across to me as if they were trying to return it to the state it was when the radiation affected it, and the doctor was sad that it revealed the worst in him, and not the best.  I may have missed something.

They were definitely trying to return it to the state it was at because of the radiation. The radiation allowed the Dalek to expand its consciousness beyond its normal parameters and gain a respect for life. They wanted the Dalek to remember what it felt and what it learned during that time and keep it. The radiation leak proved that a Dalek was capable of change. It's just really freakin hard. For a Dalek to gain a respect for life without being injected or spliced with magical human DNA is a pretty big breakthrough.

This may be of interest to you guys. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e59guruVL4o

Thanks. I was feeling a bit stressed. That helped.

A fun thing on the BBC website mapping out the Doctor's journeys:

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20131119-doctor-who-travels-through-time

Oh wow that's really cool :D.