Spoiler-free first post. You know the drill.
Dreadful, wasn’t it? Terrible scenery chewing by the bride and the Queen Rraknos. I’m not a Catherine Tate fan anyway. But I wonder how the kiddies saw it?
There were a few nice twists along the way.
Having the spaceship descend and be a star was a nice touch.
And really, tanks attacking the spaceship? How about having HMS Belfast open fire? I mean, she’s right there. I suppose the SFX budget couldn’t run to fighter jets.
The best bit was at the end where we saw clips from the future episodes.
Without reading anything, I am going to suggest that perhaps a slight alteration in the thread title is in order? Just so no one wanders in thinking this is a better-late-than-never discussion of The Christmas Invasion, maybe you mention the Bride or throw in the year or something.
I enjoyed it. Last year’s special was rather hokey, too, but it was the first glimpse of DT, so we were all too excited to care. I don’t mind a little scenery chewing, and I loved the makeup/costume (especially the blinking eyes), so I enjoyed the Racnoss Empress. I thought she was a lot better than guys who got blown up over London last Christmas.
Other than that, it wasn’t outstanding one way or the other. I liked Donna; I thought she made a great foil for the Doctor after her initial bitchiness. And it was nice to see someone react differently to the whole space thing. I’ve never seen Tate before, so I had no baggage, which may have helped. It was mostly a filler since the new companion isn’t available yet. It had a high “kiddy” factor, but it was fun. 3/4 stars.
BTW, where was Torchwood? I know T1 was destroyed in the Battle of Canary Wharf, but tanks? Come on! What about Jack and that guy in Glasgow? What about the huge fricken laser beam? And not even a mention on Torchwood? When the Doctor and Donna started crawling under the Thames, I thought for sure they’s found T4!
On Beeb three. Not great but an enjoyable way to spend an hour.
The Bride character was just too fucking annoying for me to like the show very much, but I’m certainly warming up to DT, which I never thought a year ago when he replaced Eccleston. I used to think of him as twee, but the emotions he displayed when talking about Rose was perfect.
The preview was good and the best part was the glimpse of the new companion. Does it start in Feb?
I meant why wasn’t the Torchwood Institute involved in attacking the spaceship? I’ve been watching the show Torchwood, as shown by my references to Torchwoods 2-4. That show, as I said, hasn’t had a mention of the Racnoss.
I know, I was just going for a way to sell Torchwood to those that haven’t seen it.
But you’re right, I was waiting for Captain Jack to show up, felt his prescence was needed. And even though Vicky created Torchwood as a foil to the Doctor, I think it’s obvious thet they’re on the same side and should able to help each other out, maybe like Mi5 and Mi6.
Well, Captain Jack deals with what’s going on in Cardiff, not really much to do with London. And London’s Torchwood Institute has been destroyed and may not be up to much proactive contributing.
I found it very Doctor Who-ish, it felt a lot more like the original series, circa late 70s, with its cheesiness. Not sure if I liked it, I think a few minor story tweaks and better direction of the actors (the two female roles especially) would’ve made it better.
But it had its moments. I liked the chase down the highway, and the way she seemed to be oblivious of the alien oriented events that have been ravaging the country over the past couple of years.
I’m glad she didn’t want to be a Companion, though.
Over on this side of the pond, we see that Rose is no longer the Doctor’s companion, and that she has been replaced by another Donna, as referenced above?) In the quick shot of her at the end of the 'Doomsday" episode, she looked familiar. Did she have her own show in the last couple of years that I may have seen on BBC America?
Catherine Tate is best known in the UK for The Catherine Tate show, which is a sketch comedy show. She is not the new companion though, just a one-off for the Christmas special. The new companion is called Martha Jones, played by (the really rather gorgeous) Freema Agyeman. She’ll be introduced in the first episode of Series 3, which will debut in the Spring. Incidentally, Freema played a (different) character in Army of Ghosts/Doomsday - she was the Torchwood member who got taken over while disappearing for a quick shag (IIRC).
Thanks for the info. Looking forward to the next season.
It may just be newspaper speculation, but today’s Times is reporting that David Tennant will retire midway through his third series. This is because he doesn’t want to become typecast in the role.
The paper is also saying that the next Dr. Who might be either Robert Carlyle or David Morrissey
Given how oblivious most people in the Whoniverse seem to be regarding Earth’s semi-annual alien invasions, they may simply not have noticed. I mean, invasions probably don’t even rate front page news anymore…
Or, given what we’ve seen of the Torchwood 2 team, they probably missed it because they were having a mass orgy in the weevil’s cage or something… 
Good point! I also want to know what the hell Torchwood was doing all through the eighties (or whenever those shows were set) when Three was stuck running around London all the time. Why didn’t the Doctor know about them then?
I think they should have just made the new show about UNIT and skipped all the Torchwood stuff, personally, but I guess they couldn’t resist a cool anagram.
Complete speculation and made-up. They seem to do this annually, and have done for the past ten years. They love to come up with suggestions on who should be the next Doctor, and I believe their record of accuracy on their guesses has been approximately 0%.
The truth is that the fourth series hasn’t even been greenlit by the BBC yet, so no decisions can be made by any staff or cast regarding their employment. Therefore, whatever was the basis for this rumour (if anything; it was probably made up out of whole cloth) is not worth paying attention to.