First of all, I said to my ex as soon as I saw the ad for this, that it looked like a rip off of Pitch Black and sure enough;
But I digress. Not really a special, as with the Christmas special. More special in the sense that “you’re not getting a series this year, so any episode is special.”
Not a bad episode, enjoyable enough I guess. Hopefully Michelle Ryan won’t be coming back as an assistant. Some foreshadowing of the change of Doctors ahead, really… not much to talk about.
ETA: The old enemy coming back, I’m guessing not even Davies won’t squeeze another Dalek episode in there, so perhaps the Master will return?
That’s the rumour, seemingly backed up by a some set pics. Also, knowing Davies’ love of anagrams, I had a bit of a chuckle over the title of the next special - The Water of Mars.
As to this episode, it was fun. As you say, it didn’t feel very ‘special’. Still good, mind.
As for this one, I liked it a lot. I’m very tired of NuWho’s insistence in portraying the Doctor as a superhero and having people acknowledge just how wonderful he is every five minutes, but it didn’t bug me so much this time around. It helped a lot the whole thing was so light-hearted and fun. It’s good not to have every story be all dramatic all the time. Also, loved the reference to Tom Baker’s first serial and thought the flying bus was a great idea. I’m not familiar with the novels, but didn’t Iris Wyldtime have a Tardis like that?
This story’s companion was appropriate for this episode but I’d really dislike her fast if I had to see too much of her. I miss Donna already. Not everybody needs to be special.
Yeah. It was smaller on the inside than on the outside.
Thought it was a good, fun episode. Fairly lightweight but that’s okay - it was a surprisingly simple story, but it worked. The visuals were stunning - the filming in Dubai really paid off. Thought the companion was great, and the flying bus was a hoot. My favourite part was the scene where the Doctor sat in wonder at what everyone had waiting for them at the end of their bus journey, and used it to inspire them. Wonderful, magical Doctor Who thinking.
The bus wasn’t supposed to look like that. Unfortunately somebody dropped a container on it while it was sitting on the dockside in Dubai. This called for some tweaking of the script to account for the damage.
According to the end titles the next episode will air in the autumn. Even given our attrocious climate I don’t think the autumn starts in August.
My guess is sometime around October, but AFAIK no official date has been set yet.
For the record I really enjoyed this episode. It was lighthearted and fun.
Looking forward to the darker end of the series with the Christmas two parter. I’m hoping that if Waters of Mars is set on Mara that we might see the return of the Ice Warriors. I suspect that if the Master does return here it will only be a cameo, with the main story waiting until Christmas.
The current doctor does seem to need some external affirmations else he starts to not do so well. Remember Midnight, the one where he was without an admiring companion (Donna stayed back to do the spa) and his “I’m clever” schtick went over like a lead balloon?
Does anyone else get annoyed by how often he makes promises that he really has no idea about whether or not he can keep and often doesn’t?
One of the reasons I liked Donna so much as a companion was exactly because she tried to deflate the Doctor’s ego a bit. But yeah, Midnight was a nice change of pace and it was fun (and horrifying) to see all the Doctor’s habits turned against him so consistently.
You know, the first thing I thought when the Doctor promised all the bus’ passengers they’d get back home okay was that they’d all be dead before the episode was over. I was very surprised to see them all survive (the bus driver died before the speech). He really shouldn’t keep promising so much so often.
Fun episode. The Doctor mentioned he stole the Tardis from the Timelords. Anyone care to briefly fill me in on that? I don’t know much of the Doctor’s history.
I’m a little :rolleyes: every time someone wants to be his companion and the Doctor is all, “no. No companions. I lose them. It hurts. Nope, never again. Just me all alone. Nope, nosiree, no more companions.”
Whatevs, we know he’s going to take another one. If nothing else, he’d go insane without someone to blather on at between adventures.
The short version is that, while the first Doctor often bragged about his building the TARDIS, it turned he was a bit of a lying ol’ bastard and a thieving bugger to boot. In the second Doctor’s final story, ‘The War Games’, the Time Lords caught up with him and put him on trial. His punishment was to be trapped on Earth, his mind wiped so he’s unable to work the TARDIS and he has a regeneration forced upon him.
It was fun and silly, and the foreshadowing was great. I liked the psychic and her husband- they were so unassuming. Great psychic powers, and are they greedy? No. They win twenty pounds a week.
The chick bothered me, and I’m glad she’s gone. In my almost totally NuWho experience, the Companions need to be more grounded than the Doctor, and compassionate. She said she’d abandoned her lover because he got caught. Not a great person to have around to prevent him from genocide, or remind him to keep living, or whatever.
Ahem. I have watched the Doctor Who Confidential stuff about Midnight (one of my favourite episodes), and RTD said he loved that the Doctor did everything he normally does to try to control situations, and it all backfired, because of the annoyance, and gradually the horror, of having his voice stolen.
Well it’s a good mechanism to get through the specials. Right? …right? I prefer this shtick to having the companion die at the end of every special, though.
I really liked this episode, although I think I would have liked it better if I hadn’t seen the full preview for it. I think I’m going to like the next one too, based on the short blurb at the end of this one. And since I learn from my mistakes, I won’t watch any other previews for it.
I’m kind of in a weird place with Doctor Who because on the one hand, my mind is screaming “RTD, get off the stage so we can see what Stephen Moffat can do!” On the other hand, it’s also screaming “I don’t want David Tennant to go!” So I’m very uncertain of how quickly I want the next specials to come.
I’m not getting it, help me out here?
Nope, never again. Just me all alone. Nope, nosiree, no more companions.”