Doctor Who Season 6

I don't really understand why everyone is making such a huge fuss over David Tennant no longer being the Doctor. His run was a little too long, I thought. I was getting tired of him. The change was a welcome one. I really like that The Doctor is reinvented every once and a while. It makes for more variety in the story telling. I thought that regeneration was a well-understood and expected by fans, so why all of the anger over something that has happened 10 times before?

The series was off the air for a long time, and DT was the first Doctor for a lot of people. Series One might have been popular enough to relaunch Who, but poor Nine got eclipsed by Ten. While regeneration is kind of expected given that it's happened once, it's different for your Doctor.

I liked Ten better for being so facepalm-worthy. Gawping at the screen and going WHAT at the hero's antics is half the fun for me.

Sutremaine wrote:

The series was off the air for a long time, and DT was the first Doctor for a lot of people. Series One might have been popular enough to relaunch Who, but poor Nine got eclipsed by Ten. While regeneration is kind of expected given that it's happened once, it's different for your Doctor.

I liked Ten better for being so facepalm-worthy. Gawping at the screen and going WHAT at the hero's antics is half the fun for me.

This. As someone who's been watching the series since Three's last season, while it tended to kick up a certain amount of fuss among fans when The Doctor regenerated, it didn't cause the threats to never ever watch the show again I saw by the fans when Tenant left. Mostly because, at that point, the series had been running for a fair amount of time, and the fact the Doctor was, sooner or later, going to regenerate was just accepted as a fact of life. Even when Tom Baker, who'd played the part for close to 13 years regenerated into Peter Davidson, I don't recall people threatening to stop watching the show.

Also, with the exception of Baker, most of the actors who played the Doctor didn't stay with the part for longer than 2-4 years. Then the series got canceled during 7's run, and, as Sutremaine said, Nine (who I actually quite liked) only played the part for one season. David Tenant's 10 played the part for five years, which was close to what some of the Classic Doctors had done, but since most people who watched the show weren't familiar with the original, to them, Tenant was THEIR The Doctor. Just like I think of Four, Five and Seven as being mine (and Nine-I really wish Echleston had hung around longer).

Rabid Badger wrote:

David Tenant's 10 played the part for five years, which was close to what some of the Classic Doctors had done, but since most people who watched the show weren't familiar with the original, to them, Tenant was THEIR The Doctor. Just like I think of Four, Five and Seven as being mine (and Nine-I really wish Echleston had hung around longer).

(bolding mine)

Watch your spelling, Badger. It's Tennant, and Eccleston.

My Doctor was William Hartnell, although as I've said elsewhere, I adored both 9 and 10. I'm having trouble getting to like Matt Smith, although he does have his moments.

...I miss McCoy

But this Smith dude is pretty good.

Azzandra wrote:

Knight wrote:

Okay, so who else saw the twist ending of the Ghost Ship coming a mile away? Not a bad premise but I mean... Eccleston already got that twist.

I did.

Spoiler:

I still liked the episode, though, if only for Amy's amusing pirate outfit. And the d'aww scenes with Rory.

I'm running behind a bit with Doctor Who and only saw the Spot ep yesterday. So...apparently I'm the only one who thought it sucked really hard. As in, I thought this must be the worst DW episode in 3 seasons or so. The story made no sense at all. Some questions:

Spoiler:

I saw this ep right before the Neil Gaiman one, and while I wasn't as impressed with that one as I'd hoped I'd be, it was so much better!

kleine_kat wrote:

The fact that he's a robot is completely ignored by all the writers of the last few episodes. But you'd think he wouldn't get sick. Maybe he rusted or something, in the water, but then he wouldn't need resuscitation, one would think.

Wait, I thought after rebooting the universe, Rory became human again.

Azzandra wrote:

kleine_kat wrote:

The fact that he's a robot is completely ignored by all the writers of the last few episodes. But you'd think he wouldn't get sick. Maybe he rusted or something, in the water, but then he wouldn't need resuscitation, one would think.

Wait, I thought after rebooting the universe, Rory became human again.

He did.

Somath Cegem wrote:

Azzandra wrote:

kleine_kat wrote:

The fact that he's a robot is completely ignored by all the writers of the last few episodes. But you'd think he wouldn't get sick. Maybe he rusted or something, in the water, but then he wouldn't need resuscitation, one would think.

Wait, I thought after rebooting the universe, Rory became human again.

He did.

Ah, ok, I must've missed that. Ok, my bad, scratch the rant about Rory being a robot .

...how boring! Why did they do that? I liked Rory being a robot...

kleine_kat wrote:

Ah, ok, I must've missed that. Ok, my bad, scratch the rant about Rory being a robot .

...how boring! Why did they do that? I liked Rory being a robot...

4 very important words.

Rebooted. all. of. Reality.

Somath Cegem wrote:

kleine_kat wrote:

Ah, ok, I must've missed that. Ok, my bad, scratch the rant about Rory being a robot .

...how boring! Why did they do that? I liked Rory being a robot...

4 very important words.

Rebooted. all. of. Reality.

True, true. I get the idea behind it, I just feel sad about Robo!Rory.

But...what about Donna? What about her reality, which the Doctor twisted so she would no longer remember him or her life with him? Or is that reality so firmly established that it's part of the reboot? DW timelines confuse me sometimes.

Just musing, really.

kleine_kat wrote:

Somath Cegem wrote:

kleine_kat wrote:

Ah, ok, I must've missed that. Ok, my bad, scratch the rant about Rory being a robot .

...how boring! Why did they do that? I liked Rory being a robot...

4 very important words.

Rebooted. all. of. Reality.

True, true. I get the idea behind it, I just feel sad about Robo!Rory.

But...what about Donna? What about her reality, which the Doctor twisted so she would no longer remember him or her life with him? Or is that reality so firmly established that it's part of the reboot? DW timelines confuse me sometimes.

Just musing, really.

Everything got put back to the way it was before the cracks started eating things and it was Donna memory that the doctor voiped in order to stop the time lord part wiping out the rest of her brain and killing her with it.

So yeah, that still happened.

Somath Cegem wrote:

Everything got put back to the way it was before the cracks started eating things and it was Donna memory that the doctor voiped in order to stop the time lord part wiping out the rest of her brain and killing her with it.

So yeah, that still happened.

But the crack appeared when Amy was still very young. Different Doctor, different timeline. You actually have no idea when is the when when Donna was running around with the Doctor. Might be at the same time --or is there a year mentioned, somewhere? Wasn't it eating things then? I know, I should watch episodes more often than once, but actually I'm not sure that timelineplot is failproof...

Again, I'm just musing. I watch DH while having dinner and sometimes I (obviously) miss out on things. When I accidentally snort spaghetti sauce up my nose, and stuff.

So I've been mulling the whole 'River Song is really Rory and Amy's daughter, and children conceived near a Time Vortex can often display Time Lord-type traits, and maybe they're hedging their bets for when The Doctor runs out of regenerations', and then I realized something I'd completely forgotten about (and I wager the writer's have as well).

Susan. Susan Foreman, aka The First Doctor's granddaughter. Which would make her a Time Lord, right? Last seen on New Earth, getting married to a human freedom fighter named David, and seen again briefly in 'The Five Doctors.' No mention has ever been made of what became of her, but she was pretty young (by Time Lord standards), so she could have only used up a couple of her regenerations in the time it's taken her Grandfather to get to 11.

Why go to all the trouble of creating a partial Time Lord (River Song), when they've already got a full-blooded one out there somewhere, probably alive and well? We know she wasn't anywhere near Gallifrey when it was destroyed, so we have to assume (until it's proven otherwise) that she's still alive.

Or is it just that the idea of The Doctor romancing (and marrying) his granddaughter is considerably more squicky than him flirting with River Song? And you do realize this makes Amy and Rory his mother and father-in-law?

For that matter, Jenni's still out there too. She may not be completely Time Lord, but she's got some of her father's abilities. Maybe she can regenerate as well.

Speaking of the regenerations...

During the scene when Ganger Doctor was trying to get himself under control, did anyone else have a brief moment of fanboyish/fangirlish glee when we heard the voice of Tom Baker asking if anyone wanted a Jelly Baby?

GamemasterAnthony wrote:

Speaking of the regenerations...

During the scene when Ganger Doctor was trying to get himself under control, did anyone else have a brief moment of fanboyish/fangirlish glee when we heard the voice of Tom Baker asking if anyone wanted a Jelly Baby?

The whole voice-changing bit I actually found a bit disturbing.

Rabid Badger wrote:

Susan. Susan Foreman, aka The First Doctor's granddaughter.

I always assumed that since not every Time Lord was on Gallifrey at the end of the Time War (not one of them apart from the Master decided they didn't want a part of it? Really?), whatever the Doctor did killed off the stragglers. Psychic shock, maybe.

Sutremaine wrote:

Rabid Badger wrote:

Susan. Susan Foreman, aka The First Doctor's granddaughter.

I always assumed that since not every Time Lord was on Gallifrey at the end of the Time War (not one of them apart from the Master decided they didn't want a part of it? Really?), whatever the Doctor did killed off the stragglers. Psychic shock, maybe.

Okay, this is where I always get confused. Eight regenerated into Nine due to (we were lead to assume) the sheer trauma of the entire Time Lord Race dying. Ten couldn't get over what he'd done to the point of constantly wallowing in it. Then, in the final episode, Hey, kids, the Time Lords aren't dead after all! The High Council of Gallifrey still exists, complete with Borusa,who I swear I remember being turned into a statue in 'The Five Doctors' for daring to lay claim to Rassilon's 'gift' of immortality' (I need to rewatch the DVD to check on that). Okay, they'd been 'Time Locked,' but that's not the same as being dead. That just meant they couldn't escape the time lock without help (Simm's Master and his stubble of despair).

Which, if you stop to think about it, rendered Ten's constant wallowing over having destroyed Gallifrey totally unnecessary. He HAD to have been the one to put the time lock in place because he knew what was happening when they broke through. So he knew he wasn't truly the Last of the Time Lords, he and the Master were simply the last ones to have the freedom to go where they wanted. If the Council could figure out a way to break the time lock long enough to send the diamond to the Master, that means they likely would have figured out a way to break it sooner or later.

Basically, Ten used the supposed fact that all the Time Lords were dead and Gallifrey was gone to engage in some very un-Doctor like behavior (like wiping out an entire alien race just because he got mad at them).

Unless he was suffering from some sort of post-traumatic amnesia and really did believe they were all dead, which I find hard to buy, given how quickly he figured out what was happen in 'End of Time." He and the Master knew who was coming the minute the white point diamond appeared.

Yeah, it's something I thought up pretty early on into the new series, before the reveal about the Time Lords not being the slightest bit dead. I mean, the Time War is still happening throughout Series 1 onwards, it's just happening in its own little bubble. If the Doctor wants to think of that as though they really are all dead (until they break out), then it doesn't say much about his ability to cope with the situation. All-around bad choice on RTD's part, I think.

I have an incredibly stupid question for you all. I've decided to watch season 5 and 6 over the summer and after watching "Time of the Angels" and "Flesh and Stone" would anyone mind giving me a list of episodes that are really, really creepy/scary? Ones that should not be watched when staying home alone.

Salamas wrote:

I have an incredibly stupid question for you all. I've decided to watch season 5 and 6 over the summer and after watching "Time of the Angels" and "Flesh and Stone" would anyone mind giving me a list of episodes that are really, really creepy/scary? Ones that should not be watched when staying home alone.

You've pretty much hit on the worse two, the rest are pretty much just 'watch during day light hours' cases at worst.

Blink, the first Angels episode, had a good creepy vibe.

Oh, and the Library one had great atmosphere as well.

Somath Cegem wrote:

Salamas wrote:

I have an incredibly stupid question for you all. I've decided to watch season 5 and 6 over the summer and after watching "Time of the Angels" and "Flesh and Stone" would anyone mind giving me a list of episodes that are really, really creepy/scary? Ones that should not be watched when staying home alone.

You've pretty much hit on the worse two, the rest are pretty much just 'watch during day light hours' cases at worst.

Oh okay, glad to hear.

Knorg wrote:

Blink, the first Angels episode, had a good creepy vibe.

Oh, and the Library one had great atmosphere as well.

I saw Blink a while ago. It was, um, fun... I'll probably watch all of David Tennant's run when I'm done with season 6. Yes, I am doing things in an odd order, just because.

Midnight is scary at any time of day. That one's Series 4.

The Waters of Mars is also scary, as much for the Doctor as for the antagonists, but maybe it won't have the same effect on someone who hasn't been watching up until that point.