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Doctor Who

TomH1138

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steelio2006 said:
And I'd have to agree with Bob bout that fan theory that's been thrown around. It makes an awfully lot of sense.
... be much cooler to have her be The Master.

The Master refers to the Doctor as his "boyfriend"?
Sorry, not buying it. :)
 

bionicbob

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Other theories of the identity of the mysterious MISSY are....

She could be the Rani or River Song

TomH1138 said:
The Master refers to the Doctor as his "boyfriend"?
Sorry, not buying it. :)

or....

I thought about that comment and the Doctor and the Master always had an unusual Love/Hate-Brother/Friend relationship and I could see with a gender switch regeneration, the Master's perspective/interpretation of their relationship could be a bit twisted... lol.

Plus, the same way Moffat took the meta approach of dealing with young fan's discomfort with of having an OLDER Doctor, I could see him tackling the demand by some fans of making the Doctor a female or non-white.

Then there is the whole MISSY = MISTRESS = MASTER thing.

But it might be all be misdirection of Moffat's part. I am a sucker for a good magic trick.. ha ha ha.
But I just think making the Master a woman who add a refreshing dynamic.

But I guess we won't know for sure til the season two part finale...
 

Linten1

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I was just re-watching Captain America: First Avenger and noticed Jenna (Clara) Coleman is one of the girls Bucky and Steve take to the Future Fair.

Also I think I saw a Ant-Man costume on display at the front of the park.
 

bionicbob

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Linten1 said:
Also I think I saw a Ant-Man costume on display at the front of the park.

Ant-man? I don't remember that. Do you maybe mean THE ORIGINAL HUMAN TORCH? As he is clearly on display.


Only a few hours to the next episode which should give us a clearer understanding of Capaldi's (and Moffat's) interpretation of the Doctor's newest incarnation.

 

TM2YC

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Re Missy's identity...

Missy had better not be The Master :x. Having The Master protrayed without a beard was jarring enough, without him being a woman! Why in the nine hells would you cast a woman, in the role of a man? A silly gimmick? Then why not bring back the Rani, but this time as a man!
Yellow_Flash_Colorz_PDT_37.gif
Bring back K-9 as a cat while your at it
Yellow_Flash_Colorz_PDT_31.gif
.

If Missy is the Rani then awesome. The Rani was a great character, seriously in need of bringing back :).

... or maybe Missy is Bill & Ted's step-mum?
 

Linten1

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bionicbob said:
Ant-man? I don't remember that. Do you maybe mean THE ORIGINAL HUMAN TORCH? As he is clearly on display.
Oh, that explains why there was no helmet.
 

Linten1

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TM2YC said:
Re Missy's identity...

Missy had better not be The Master :x. Having The Master protrayed without a beard was jarring enough, without him being a woman! Why in the nine hells would you cast a woman, in the role of a man? A silly gimmick? Then why not bring back the Rani, but this time as a man! :oops: Bring back K-9 as a cat while your at it :p.

If Missy is the Rani then awesome. The Rani was a great character, seriously in need of bringing back :).

... or maybe Missy is Bill & Ted's step-mum?
BBC does not own the rights to Rani. Now in saying that the Pip and Jane Baker have said they would be interested in selling the rights to the BBC to continue the character.
 

matrixgrindhouse

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I'm not impressed.
This episode was something of a remake/rehash of Series 1's Dalek, but... worse. They didn't fully capture the concept of the possibility of a Good Dalek (The Evil of the Daleks, etc.)... nor did they do a good job with the Fantastic Voyage homage. Segments felt rehashed from Series 6's Tesselecta. This director did a really poor job, especially with the action beats. And I'm less enthusiastic about the Twelfth Doctor than ever. Capaldi's line readings don't seem right to me. The words are correct, but the intensity's all wrong. But the writing in particular isn't doing it for me. Sending Clara into the cortex, allowing the soldiers to sacrifice themselves without any hesitation or reservation... it just doesn't feel like something any previous incarnation of the character would have done. There's no warmth, no child-like joy. Even Hartnell's curmudgeony self had those elements. There's a lot of half-decent ideas in this episode, but none of the pieces were assembled properly.


3/10
 

hebrides

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Not going to give up on Capaldi by any means, and I do feel that some of his Doctor's decisions in this episode do have a certain amount of precedent in Tom Baker's occasional callousness-with-a-purpose and the later McCoy's machinations (what I've seen of them, anyway -- still not very versed in his Doctor yet). I also think the fact that 11 spent the last 900 years of his life fighting pretty much every day (thus, in a sense, becoming War Doctor v.2 after all the effort he spent to make War Doctor v.1 just The Doctor again) may have affected how 12 sees the universe, even if he doesn't necessarily like it to.

Still, otherwise, Mrs. Heb and I essentially agree with you, matrix. I'd heard from some people who downloaded the leaked episodes early that they didn't care for this episode, so my expectations were lower going in, but I still feel that the episode didn't hold together. Perhaps the fact that it was co-written by Moffat is revealing -- he may have stepped in to try to make the most out of a weaker episode, or Phil Ford may not have known how to develop what Moffat sketched out. Either way, not so strong.

Also, I note for the second episode in a row that the effects seem to have taken a step backwards towards the Tennant or even Eccleston eras. I can only hope that it's the director (same for both eps so far) or that some of the effects budget is being turned towards recovery/restoration of the much-rumored missing episodes...

I have heard that the next episode is much better, and it looks from the preview like it might be; I hope this is a bump in the road...
 

matrixgrindhouse

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The miniaturization machine CGI was particularly silly looking. Note that we also didn't see them return to normal size, it just happened between scenes. My gut says a reduced budget.


Now for some crackpot theories from yours truly!


Why didn't the Dalek recognize The Doctor? Even if it was unaware of this particular regeneration, he did eventually reveal himself. It seems surprisingly unphased. Was this episode set prior to Time of the Doctor, when the Daleks had their memories of him erased due to Oswin Oswald's intervention? Or... or is there something more at play here?


Are we sure Missy is evil? What has she done so far? If she is indeed responsible for giving Clara the Doctor's phone number, that's certainly an act of good. If she placed the newspaper ad, was it really a trap? Or was she trying to lead the Doctor to the lair of the robots, expediting his investigation. And while she's welcomed the company of the half-faced leader thereof, she also seems to be treating the well-intentioned soldier. What do those two have in common? The Doctor is responsible for their deaths. Or, rather, he refused to save them. Perhaps she is, somehow, scooping them out of time, leaving behind duplicates (think Tesselecta)... righting this Doctor's wrongs?


Why did the Dalek only see hatred in The Doctor? Yes, he despises the Daleks. We've been over that. But there's supposed to be so much more. His love of humanity, of all the good in the universe, and above all else, the respect he has for his friends. Both Twelve and Clara seem uncertain that he's a good person. That raises red flags. Even the War Doctor ultimately proved to be the hero we all know and love in the end. This one feels like a shell. He's part of The Doctor, but he's not all there.


I'm doubling down on my earlier insane hypothesis. Capaldi is the Valeyard... and Missy is The real Doctor.
 

MusicEd921

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I'm surprised you guys didn't like this episode. I thought it was the best episode I've seen in a while since Amy and Rory left.

I think what Moff is doing is really bringing this doctor back to his grumpy routes so that he will have some major character development and in his own way reinvent the Doctor.
 

matrixgrindhouse

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hebrides said:
or that some of the effects budget is being turned towards recovery/restoration of the much-rumored missing episodes...

Not out of the question. And I think that we may have been given some hints. Last time around, they brought back The Great Intelligence right before Web of Fear's rediscovery...


In Deep Breath, there was a very out of place looking man in traditional Chinese garb among the other robots. And considering that their ship was stuck in London, how did they manage to nab that one. Hinting at Marco Polo? In the same episode, the ship is named after Marie Antoinette. The missing episodes of The Reign of Terror?
Tonight, the Doctor and his companion were shrunk. One facet of the Omnirumor even suggested that the original versions of episode 3 and or 4 of the later merged Planet of the Giants was found....

I'm sure it's just wishful thinking on my part. But it's fun to look for patterns that probably aren't really there, sometimes.
 

hebrides

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musiced921 said:
I think what Moff is doing is really bringing this doctor back to his grumpy routes so that he will have some major character development and in his own way reinvent the Doctor.

I'm all for that, and I think Capaldi is doing yeoman work so far. I also really did enjoy Deep Breath, as it allowed him to show many different notes, from crazy to funny to off-putting to (possibly literally) deadly serious. I felt that there were a lot of good ideas in this episode as well, but they seemed a bit underdeveloped and insufficiently linked to me.

I have just read that the leaked workprint included a bit that wasn't in the broadcast episode that could have added character development to both the Doctor and Rusty. I'm curious how that scene played out originally, though I don't really want to track down a leaked version, since it was never meant to be seen (maybe when the box set comes out).

I think the Clara/Danny stuff was quite cute, but it felt a bit more out of place than usual -- possibly because they are trying to explore the idea (only really hinted at before) that Clara has a full-time life outside her time with The Doctor and is only really a part-time companion, but it still felt like the time they used for that could have been put in just about any episode and took up time that could have been used in this episode for exploring some of the more interesting ideas, such as

1. The Dalek saying to The Doctor, "You are a good Dalek," which is an obvious callback to "You would make a good Dalek" from Eccleston's Dalek, as was the setup of a captive Dalek powered down, in need of help, and getting back to causing mayhem when it's healed. There are so many parallels here, as there were with Girl in the Fireplace in Deep Breath, that I think they must be deliberate, rather than just running out of ideas. Why does he keep encountering things he has seen and done before, and why can't he recognize the parallels when we can? Also, to have moved from "would make" to "are" is not exactly something this Doctor can be at all proud of; will he get to/need to explore the consequences?

2. A Dalek's mixture of technology and biology has been hinted at before, but never before explored in so much detail. I like this, especially the disquieting idea that the biological part needs to feed, and does so on humans from time to time, thus giving it a biological imperative above and beyond genetically engineered psychotic rage. More of this would have been very interesting indeed.

3. The "rebels" had grenades that resemble very closely the bombs strapped to the (essentially) "Kamikaze" Daleks from Destiny of the Daleks, only smaller. Was this coincidence, a subtle reference, or something else?

4. The "resistance is futile" quotes (as opposed to the more common for DW "resistance is useless"), combined with The Doctor's attempt to turn the Dalek and release it amongst its own kind to make them all good seem very, very clear references to the Hugh storyline from ST:TNG. Why here? Why now? I'm not suggesting a deliberate crossover, though that did happen in officially-licensed comics with 11 and the TNG crew. But it does make me wonder whether they wanted to suggest the parallel even more strongly only to rework it, particularly given what I've read was in that deleted scene.

Anyway, I do think there was potential in this one; I was just frustrated that it didn't seem to amount to more. I stress "seem to," because if there's one thing that Moffat's era (particularly Season 5) has taught me, it's that seemingly throwaway episodes or lines always have the potential to be much more important down the line...fingers crossed!
 

hebrides

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matrixgrindhouse said:
I'm sure it's just wishful thinking on my part. But it's fun to look for patterns that probably aren't really there, sometimes.

It is fun to look for them, and I'll just point out that in the first scene of Deep Breath,
there was an extra who looked almost exactly like Maxtible from Evil of the Daleks, which was of course also set in the Victorian era. He'd been spotted in on-location photos, but people didn't think he was in that episode and therefore would have to be in another. But he was there, if you look closely. Others have pointed out that another one of the clockworks was dressed as a redcoat, which they suggest may refer to The Celestial Toymaker or another story (Highlanders, maybe, or the not-missing War Games?).
Were these just coincidences, clever callbacks designed for eagle-eyed viewers, or hints? Who knows? With luck, we may find out someday, hopefully sooner rather than later...

FWIW, I didn't make much of
the Chinese clockwork, since Talons of Weng-Chiang is also Victorian and features 51st-century technology. Just seemed like another parallel that the Doctor couldn't recognize, but we could, rather than a missing episodes reference.
But maybe I'm wrong...
 

TM2YC

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musiced921 said:
I'm surprised you guys didn't like this episode. I thought it was the best episode I've seen in a while since Amy and Rory left.

I think what Moff is doing is really bringing this doctor back to his grumpy routes so that he will have some major character development and in his own way reinvent the Doctor.

I agree. I was doing little internal jumps for joy at Capaldi's totally different take. Some of his lines were so dark, in a really awesome and witty way. Real deadpan humour :). The best exchange for me was...

Clara - "I'm his carer"
The Doctor - "Yeah, my carer. She cares so I don't have to"

...and when he told Blue that crying was how civilians usually communicated with Soldiers. It was powerful and hilarious at the same time.

I liked the new teacher dude a lot. A good performance and a character with some hidden depths, nice. The missy character is already grating on me though. Do we really need to stop the episode to have a small scene further setting her up?

Also yes, yes, yes! It wasn't just for the timewar. The stupid plastic, multi-colured fat toy Daleks are no more, wooh!

matrixgrindhouse said:
In Deep Breath, there was a very out of place looking man in traditional Chinese garb among the other robots. And considering that their ship was stuck in London, how did they manage to nab that one?

There was already a very large population of Chinese immigrants in Victorian London. So his presence was totally normal.
 

hebrides

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TM2YC said:
The best exchange for me was...

Clara - "I'm his carer"
The Doctor - "Yeah, my carer. She cares so I don't have to"

Yes, I agree. I got a bit of a vibe in Deep Breath of Capaldi playing his Doctor as a kind of riff on Hugh Laurie's other Doctor (House), and this exchange definitely reinforced that. It's something we've seen briefly in other Doctors -- most notably Hartnell and early Tom Baker, but also Colin Baker, Eccleston, Hurt, and occasionally Matt Smith -- but I think it could be interesting to have it become a defining trait of this Doctor. Sort of a Doctor who would gladly cauterize a wound or sacrifice a limb or two without anesthetic if it meant saving the patient -- maybe not the easiest person to like, but the one you want on your side if you really need help.
 

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I only started watching Doctor Who the last two weeks. I've only watched the first half of series 5 (just finished watching "Amy's Choice"), and these first two episodes of series 8. I've really like Cappaldi's performance and loves how it contrasts to Matt Smith's less serious portrayal, though so far I equally like both.

I thought last night's episode was great, and I'm loving this show so much so far. Of course, I've probably yet to see the best episodes of the series, and I am also not able to compare any of this to earlier series 1-4 from the new set, or the classics for that matter. I might watch those later, but I kind of don't feel like it because of the low-budget SD look.

In terms of the recent CGI, I feel it looks pretty good for a TV show, and while some moments are bad, I still watch Once Upon A Time, and that show has lots of creepily bad CGI moments, so I'm kind of used to it.

Anyhow, so glad I decided to start watching this, after some close friends of mine that are big fans finally pushed me over the edge.
 
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