Kevin's Watch

MsMary wrote:Yes, I'm really looking forward to the Xmas special as well. My friend and I are getting together to watch it.


Big Finish permanently reduced the price of the first 50 main range episodes of Doctor Who in honor of the 50th anniversary. So they are all $2.50 apiece for the downloads.

By the way, Big Finish has a free download of a Sherlock Holmes story today, I see.

Oh, Sherlock free download, I gotta check that out, if it's still available.

Yea, the First 50 Main Range Discount, I was trying to avoid being too confusing, if you didn't understand the situation that well

Light at The End, I still need to get. I'm trying to get caught up on my backlog, before buying more stuff (I've still got a couple more weeks worth of Doctor Who and 6 Pern Novels to catch up on )

sindatur wrote:Oh, Sherlock free download, I gotta check that out, if it's still available.

Here ya go.

sindatur wrote:Yea, the First 50 Main Range Discount, I was trying to avoid being too confusing, if you didn't understand the situation that well

Light at The End, I still need to get. I'm trying to get caught up on my backlog, before buying more stuff (I've still got a couple more weeks worth of Doctor Who and 6 Pern Novels to catch up on )

Ha! I've been reading Eighth Doctor Adventure novels from about the 1990's. Of variable quality, but fun. And working my way through TLD, which for some reason has been harder for me to get through than previous TC novels. Also I'm partway though a Torchwood novel written by John Barrowman and his sister - not great literature, but it's Captain Jack.



For those who may want to dip a toe into Big Finish audio dramas, they have put some for free download on Soundcloud. I've listened to all of them except for one (haven't gotten around to the last one yet) and enjoyed them all.

Link: https://soundcloud.com/big-finish/sets/ ... big-finish


A happy Xmas to all who celebrate it!

Finished my big watch of all the episodes pre-Matt Smith. There's some good stuff in there, but the best part in the large-scale story sense was the first season, and by season 4 things had got a bit iffy.

The season 4 finale was a mess, mostly in the first episode, The Stolen Earth. All those cameos and tie-ins for the spin-off series and past characters didn't really fit or feel necessary. The second half was better, but the whole thing was falling apart under the weight of their attempts at fanservice by throwing all the familiar stuff at us.

The few episodes that come between season 4 and season 5 were better.


And reflecting on why The Stolen Earth was a mess got me thinking about how The Time of the Doctor was a different kind of mess. The first was throwing in lots of references, tie-ins and past characters in a very fanservice-y way that burdened the story. But The Time of the Doctor was throwing in lots of elements, it seemed, not as a vehicle for tie-ins or in fanservice, but to please the writer.

The story was a mess, and it felt like it was because Moffat had set it all up in a messy way that didn't work together, but he just went on with it anyway - both because that's the idea he had and wanted to run with, and because there were lots of things that had been left unresolved and unexplained from his earlier storylines that he decided to pull together.

Hopefully with the apparent reset of the story (by which I mean, the fact that all of the loose ends from Matt Smith's run have been tied up in the last episode), we might get a better storyline for Capaldi's Doctor.


Moffat has written some very good stuff for Doctor Who, but his larger storylines since taking over haven't been very strong. On the other hand, Russell T Davies took some wrong turns in the larger storylines as well.

I loved the Series 4 finale. I loved that all those characters were brought back. I was moved by what happened with Donna; less so by the resolution with Rose, which was a bit contrived, I thought (though there are some good fan fics conjecturing on might-have-beens with Rose).

The Time of the Doctor was a bit of a mess and the plot was a bit rushed and didn't hold together as well as it could. I found it improved some on re-watching, though, and started to make a bit more sense.

I've recently started this series, and overall I like it, but I have issues with "quirky sci-fi." I tend to like my sci-fi to be serious, hold the jocularity, thank you very much. Is the whole series like this? I've seen only the first 3 episodes.

I think the first season is a little bit more silly than later ones? There's a two parter early in S1 where there are fart jokes and the aliens are deliberately obvious men-in-rubber-suits.

There's always some humour - it's a family show. It's very much on the lighter side. There are some great serious episodes, too.

Murrin, do you mean that you have watched all the old ones back to William Hartnell? We were used in those days to moving scenery (Crossroads was a good example), scenes shot in the BBC sandpit somewhere in Wales I believe, and the baking foil cybermen - it was the 60s after all. The tardis they made on Blue Peter out of old cereal boxes, tubes etc. was almost better than the real thing.

No, just the modern series. I wanted to see what Ecclestone's Doctor was like, and watch the Tenant episodes I'd never seen.

Ah, I never saw Ecclestone, and only odd David Tenant ones when visiting the grandchildren. I thought he was good though.

Am about midway through season 4 of the rebooted series. Trudging onward when I can, then I hope to go back and revisit the original series, starting with what Hartnell and Troughton episodes I can find.

dlbpharmd wrote:I've recently started this series, and overall I like it, but I have issues with "quirky sci-fi." I tend to like my sci-fi to be serious, hold the jocularity, thank you very much. Is the whole series like this? I've seen only the first 3 episodes.

I would hang in there. The first several episodes of the Ninth Doctor (Eccleston) take some time to get into.

The season really hits its stride with "Dalek."

"The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances" is also an excellent double episode.

And the season finale is pretty amazing.

Iolanthe wrote:Murrin, do you mean that you have watched all the old ones back to William Hartnell? We were used in those days to moving scenery (Crossroads was a good example), scenes shot in the BBC sandpit somewhere in Wales I believe, and the baking foil cybermen - it was the 60s after all. The tardis they made on Blue Peter out of old cereal boxes, tubes etc. was almost better than the real thing.

I've watched all the old episodes. Part of the fun is what they could do on their budget.

So...

Your take on the series 8 premier?

I enjoyed it tremendously. I love Capaldi in the role. and the phone call from 11 choked me up.

the Paternoster Gang need their own show. Strax was hilarious as always.

the ending is intentionally vague, who is she? I'm going left field and say she is the Rani. if I am right, I will be one of the few to guess her.

With a name like "Missy," I'm guessing another route: a regenerated The Master perhaps?

Master>Mistress>Missy..?

Well, the implication so far is that this character travels in time, and that she's deliberately been setting up the Doctor and Clara to meet in certain times and places. Have to wonder why, on that.

The way she calls the Doctor her "boyfriend" would actually fit with the playful way the Master behaved in his last incarnation... but the Master is on Gallifrey, as of the 10th Doctor's last episode, and the Doctor hasn't found a way to bring Gallifrey back yet.

(The whole "boyfriend" bit is also Moffat doing his typical "the Doctor is amazing and all female characters love him" thing, which gets old.)

Hashi Lebwohl wrote:I haven't seen the episode--no cable at our household--but the Rani hasn't been around since....Number 6 (Colin Baker), I think.

perfect time to bring her back then.

in reality I believe they will make her the Master. maybe River Song?

River Song gave up all her regenerations to save the Doctor in "Let's Kill Hitler", and died in her current form. We don't know what happened between 1969 and her showing up in Amy's childhood, but since she was still a child, and only grew up around Amy before regenerating into the River Song we know, it's unlikely there's some adult version of her that went travelling through time manipulating the Doctor. (Does make me wonder how she showed up as a child the same age as Amy, though... Got to be a 20+ year gap there, right?)