“The Doctor has a personality. Why?”
Wasn’t the peasant girl he was dealing with (and tied up next to when they ended up defeating the robots) Marian? If so, it probably wasn’t hard to find her.
BTW, I disagree with smeghead that this was a bad episode. I loved it. I thought it was fun, I thought the Doctor was having fun, and I just all around enjoyed it. I’m willing to overlook plot problems for a fun story.
“Into the Dalek” didn’t really do anything for me, but this one kind of had a Third Doctor feel to it that worked for me (Three is my favorite classic Doctor, even more than Four).
That move on the bridge was some classic Venusian Aikido.
I think it was because of the Doctor’s arrogant streak…he didn’t like being proved wrong. Robin’s very EXISTENCE proved him wrong in front of Clara, so he felt antagonistic towards him.
I thought he was going to fence using the sonic screwdriver.
Was the spoon he used the one the Seventh Doctor used to play as a musical instrument?
I enjoyed it for the most part. There was a Tom Bakeresque quality there, somehow.
Nope. I’m sorry, it’s just too silly.
Plus what everyone else said about the gold and the arrow. Makes no sense no matter how hard I squint.
If you had bothered to read my post, I made it clear that my issue was that Gatiss didn’t set up for the punchlines, not that he couldn’t have. It’s not funny for the Doctor to just walk up and wallop some guy’s ass, because he’s infinitely old and knows how to do everything better than everyone else on the Earth. Have him play at being a weak old man, first; show him in the Tardis, excited and practicing his feints as soon as he decides to go to Middle Earth; or have him visibly showing off for Clara. Don’t just drop a spoon on us, and feel like you’re done making a joke. Actually invoke some amount of story or character development.
Yes, we can go in and fanwank some possibilities, but that shouldn’t be necessary.
You said, “The Doctor is an expert swordsman, despite never having shown this skill before.” It was pointed out that he’s been portrayed as being a good swordsman on multiple occasions, going back to his earliest incarnations. That’s not a fanwank, that’s just you being wrong.
I also think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how character development works in a drama. Generally speaking, you don’t have to establish that a character has a character trait before you show them behaving that way - rather, it’s by showing them behaving that way that you establish that they have a character trait. So, for example, in this show, you generally would not have the Doctor declare, “I’m cranky and grumpy!” before you have him being cranky and grumpy around Robin Hood. You’d just have him being cranky and grumpy around Robin Hood, and trust the audience to figure out that he’s acting that way because he’s a cranky and grumpy person.
That image is Troughton in TVs first series about Robin Hood, but Troughton didn’t play Robin in that series - Robin was played by someone named Richard Greene, and Troughton played a variety of other characters in the series - see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047706/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast, where Troughton is credited as The Seneschal.
Wait, you think it was insufficiently established that the Doctor is arrogant? Have you never seen Doctor Who? That is the most consistent part of his personality!
I think it’s fair to say that the classic series doesn’t exist for the majority of the audience. If there was an episode of him kicking butt with a spoon in the new series, I’ll admit that I missed it, but I agree that it’s reasonable to assume that the Doc is likely to be an expert at almost anything, so that’s not really an issue. I’m sure the doctor also has an ability to read minds or to levitate objects that gets pulled out once every few decades, and other things beside. I’m not worried that Gatiss might be breaking canon, so it’s not terribly important whether my statement was right, wrong, nor “technically wrong”.
My point is and remains, the joke sucked. Gatiss needed to set it up in some way. Having the Doctor kick a guy’s ass with a spoon isn’t enough, by itself.
Fair enough that it didn’t work for you. Me, I loved it. I like when the Doctor is silly occasionally. Like in the 50th Anniversary special when Ten is giving the whole “I am the Oncoming Storm!” speech to a rabbit.
The first thing David Tennant did as the Doctor is have a sword fight on a spaceship. Very first episode.
Anyway, the point of the joke isn’t that he fought with a spoon instead of a sword, the joke is that he fought with a spoon instead of his sonic screwdriver. And if you don’t think they’ve adequately established that as his go-to plot resolution device, I’m pretty sure you’ve never actually seen the show before.
But why a spoon?
Because it’ll hurt more!
On the contrary. Patrick Troughton was TV’s first Robin Hood in 1953
Richard Greene’s series was later, in 1955
And the still is from the earlier series
http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/changingwho/10301.shtml?page=2
Yeah, I kept half expecting him to reveal himself as the Master. Oh well, we’ll see him soon enough I’m sure.
As for the current Doctor, I like him, as long as he stays away from the slapstick. I like having him be darker. Actually, he sounds like the Doctor that River talked about when she first met Tennant’s doctor.
Agreed.
Because of that.
The little things were too predictable. The headbutt. The fighting over the keys, and having them fall in the drain. Robots that shoot lasers, but only at people’s chests, so a simple shield held in place is protection? And “Everyone! The last robot!”…with the beam bouncing all around? Weak. Cheap theatrics.
Honestly, if this had been the first Doctor Who episode I saw, there wouldn’t have been a second.
As far as the arc…did anyone else think the gold mold could be a reference to The Fires of Pompeii? Or am I reading too much into the circuit? And the hands sticking up out of the pot of gold near the end reminded me of the Angels in Time of the Doctor. But that’s probably just grasping at straws.
Actually, I thought it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed it more than the last two. Shame the plot didn’t make much sense, though.
I’m glad it was cut because I think it was badly done and it was rather unsporting of the Doctor to interfere and Robin to whack the guys head off that way.
The Doctor felt the whole Robin Hood thing was some kind of trick. He felt that the way all the characters acted was too much like the legend so it had to be made up and he was frustrated with trying to figure out who or what was behind it.
That, too.