# Spoil The New Dr Who For Me **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 7, 2009, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-the-new-dr-who-for-me/488620 "2009-03-07T02:32:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2009, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-the-new-dr-who-for-me/488620/21 "2009-03-08T01:05:19Z")
> [@Illuminatiprimus](#): > > Is anyone else getting fed up of his quasi-omniscience? Only you, tbh. There’s nothing “quasi” about it. The Doctor is after all a Timelord, a God when compared to a mere human, but a lonely one, and fallible with it. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2009, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-the-new-dr-who-for-me/488620/22 "2009-03-08T01:27:22Z")
> [@Illuminatiprimus](#): > > That is an amazing (and eerie) encapsulation of the David Tennant Doctor. Not just Tennant. All incarnations of the Doctor have had a certain amount of smug know-it-all about them. Because, as it has been pointed out on the show, he can see Time’s effects on everyone and everything all the time. He knows more about the Universe than almost anybody he encounters. That’s what the character is all about. ---
**Author:** ![David\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@David\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_B)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2009, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-the-new-dr-who-for-me/488620/23 "2009-03-08T21:55:16Z")
Re: My comment on the 8th Doctor: > [@DocCathode](#): > > Why? Going by the one movie we have of him, I liked his acting and the writing was fair to good. He was fine. The writing, plot, and entire episode was horrible. I mean, really – half human? Gack!:smack: ---
**Author:** ![David\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@David\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_B)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2009, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-the-new-dr-who-for-me/488620/24 "2009-03-08T21:57:09Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > In fact, as the last known surviving Time Lord he no longer has any restrictions at all, except self imposed ones. I’m not so sure of that. We know Time Lords have 12 regens. We know the Council had the ability to grant new ones. We also know they Council had the ability to raise people from the dead. But just because the Council could do such things doesn’t mean the last surviving Time Lord automatically can as well. It was likely technological in nature, and Gallifrey is gone, so… ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2009, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-the-new-dr-who-for-me/488620/25 "2009-03-08T21:59:25Z")
RE PBS I checked again to be sure and neither local PBS station is showing the new Who. BTW Feel free to spoil Torchwood as well. Again, I’m not interested so much in the various character as in any additions to Who continuity. ---
**Author:** ![Kaio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c68b51/32.png) [@Kaio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaio)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2009, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-the-new-dr-who-for-me/488620/26 "2009-03-08T23:09:13Z")
> [@Illuminatiprimus](#): > > That is an amazing (and eerie) encapsulation of the David Tennant Doctor. Is anyone else getting fed up of his quasi-omniscience? There’s been several episodes where the Doctor fucks up and has to be saved by a human – “42” “Blink” and “Midnight” off the top of my head – which are actually my favorite episodes (along with the Library eps). The Kylie Minogue Christmas special might count too, both for his being saved by Astrid, and for his being unable to save her (his “I’m the Doctor! I can do anything!” line was especially poignant for me). Or where he ran into something that completely defied his understanding of the universe and left him confused and flustered (“The Satan Pit” and “Midnight”). He’s not omniscient, he knows quite a bit more than humans do, but they’ve made it clear he doesn’t know everything. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2009, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-the-new-dr-who-for-me/488620/27 "2009-03-09T11:10:21Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > I gather from the episodes I have seen that the Daleks finally perfected time travel and had a big war with the Timelords. Originally, this left only the Doctor alive. But lately I hear rumors that the Master, the Rani, or the Meddling Monk may be back. In the episode “Dalek” we find the last Dalek alive. But then in the reality TV episode, we find the Emperor Dalek has survived. The main writer for the series has regularly pulled out larger and larger Dalek kitchen sinks along the way for each new finale. First the Daleks were all dead. Then one survived, but it died. Then an Emperor and a lot of cloned Daleks survived, but then they all died too. Then a group of special Daleks survived and tried to release a captive army of Daleks, but they were all sucked back into a void between universes. Then they came back and tried to turn humans into Daleks, but the humans turned on them and only one survived. He came back with Davros, a new supreme Dalek and a whole army of Daleks with a device to destroy reality, but it was turned on them and they all died too. The specials are supposed to have a whole new set of recurring bad guys, probably because we’ve reached saturation point with the Daleks. > [@Kaio](#): > > He’s not omniscient, he knows quite a bit more than humans do, but they’ve made it clear he doesn’t know everything. I felt his omniscient smugness was equally offset by his exasperation at not knowing what’s going on. Tennant is pretty good at that, sort of a bi-polar Doctor. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2009, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-the-new-dr-who-for-me/488620/28 "2009-03-09T14:56:09Z")
> [@Struan](#): > > Only you, tbh. There’s nothing “quasi” about it. The Doctor is after all a Timelord, a God when compared to a mere human, but a lonely one, and fallible with it. I always figured it was kind of like Nicholas Cage’s power in Next, except more natural and intuitive. That’s why he can stroll up to his enemies and always sort of just do and say the right thing such that they just don’t summarily shoot him in the face. I’ll tell you what I am sick of though is all the “Doctor worship”. Like when everyone on Earth had to think happy thoughts about him so he could defeat the Master. Yeah. Nice one, Tinkerbell. ---
**Author:** ![Kaio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c68b51/32.png) [@Kaio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaio)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2009, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-the-new-dr-who-for-me/488620/29 "2009-03-09T22:57:34Z")
> [@Pushkin](#): > > I felt his omniscient smugness was equally offset by his exasperation at not knowing what’s going on. Tennant is pretty good at that, sort of a bi-polar Doctor. This is why I actually like his cockiness. First of all, he’s the Doctor, he _is_ that smart, so he’s earned it (and he has always kept a sense of humor about it so I never felt it crossed the line into arrogance). Secondly, it emphasizes and heightens the difference when he does lose control of a situation, simply because it rarely happens, plus it’s unexpected to _him_ when it does, too. Tennant does a great job in expressing this fear and horror, as well, so some of the best moments are when it hits him that he’s not in control anymore. The moment in “Midnight” when everyone is demanding to know why they should even listen to him, and he blurts out “Because I’m clever!” and the room goes dead silent. You can _see_ on his face that he knows he just fucked that up big time. Also the abject terror in his face once Sky has “imprisoned” him. He _knows_ he’s absolutely helpless. The fact that someone so powerful can’t do anything at all makes it ten times more terrifying. I think the best moment ever is in “42” when he says “Martha, I’m scared.” The Doctor is never scared! And yet here he is, and he’s so extremely scared that he’s actually willing to admit that he is, _and_ he’s to the point that he can’t put a brave or rational face on it. Hearing him say that gave me chills. In a lot of ways the best part about heroes is seeing that they’re fallible. There’s a far greater impact with this when the distance between the two is so extreme. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-the-new-dr-who-for-me/488620.md?page=1)