SB Doctor Who thread: Baron Patsy posting alone

Ashura · Joined: 06 Dec 2006 Location: Far East of Eden

I wonder if the Doctor defeats Simm-Master and takes him to the future and leaves him with Chantho to create some kind of paradox where the Master is stuck circling as an aberration in time.

Even if that's not the case, I do agree with you that the Doctor did punish him. But I don't think he's actually done it yet. It's almost as-if this season has been training us to think about time differently. And how the order of events can be skewed.

Personally, I think the Master needs to be as manic and even more quirky than the Doctor to match him. If only to show how they're mirrors from each other, and this is how the Doctor would be if he didn't have a moral compass. A companion. Also, there's the idea that the Master syphoned off regeneration juice from the Doctor's hand. I wonder if that affected anything.

I also wonder how early that was planned out.

Westacular · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Waterloo-ish, ON, Canada

It's noteworthy that the Master doesn't act manic until regenerated. In his Yana form, he's very much the sinister Master that we might expect. Carefully going about his business, preparing to leave, cleaning up loose ends.

Show mythology holds that Time Lords can effect a certain level of control over their regenerations, and here we see the Master quite explicitly regenerates to match the Tenth Doctor: Young, strong. And manic and cheeky, as Jack so usefully points out.

I just rewatched the ending scenes, and I'm not convinced the Master is siphoning from the hand. First, he doesn't grab the hand and stumble in after being shot -- he had already grabbed the hand and placed in the TARDIS as part of his other preparations. Second, during the regeneration, there's no streams of energy coming from the tank; it's just glowing different colours in sync with what's poring out of the Master. This is very possibly just meant to reflect the lighting in the room. The bubbling with the hand only means that the Doctor is in the vicinity.

I also just watched some bits of Human Nature again to check something:

-The Family follows them through the use of "a Time Agent's vortex manipulator" -- exactly what we now know Jack had! I nice little detail.

-Regarding the Chameleon Arch, the Doctor says "I never thought I'd use this. All the times I've wondered." It's not clear if this just means on himself, or on anyone. If he's not used it, why does he have it? Where did it come from? Did they become TARDIS Standard Issue during the Time War?

-There's post-it notes attached to the TARDIS viewscreen showing the pattern on the front and back of the watch, drawn in pen. Not sure why. Is that particular design of watch constant for all Chameleon Arches?
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aderack · Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Location: Brooklyn, NY

Ashura · Joined: 06 Dec 2006 Location: Far East of Eden

In the commentary they mention that they had to grab John Barrowman and tell him he wouldn't be in series two without telling him at all about Torchwood. He was apparently completely disheartened about it.

Like I said before, I think Saxon was probably more involved in Torchwood in the earlier concept. Torchwood was around in some capacity during the first series, as evidenced in the finale.

One thing I see them doing this year that they shied away from is time flux. I think it's you who told me, Aderack, that they initially planned that the Queen would be killed and that would create the alternate world. But RTD didn't do this because it might be too complicated for viewers. He seems to think they can take it this year.

My friend and I watched this episode and Countrycide today. We've been slowly going through Torchwood together. His comments on Countrycide were interesting. He couldn't understand how Gwen wouldn't kill the cop-cannibal in the gun roundtable. He said that Jack coming in with the shotgun is the only thing which redeemed the episode for him- He said he couldn't understand how the cannibal characters survived and that the Torchwood guys should've killed them long before the end. He then proclaimed he hated the Gwen character.

I honestly hope they take stock in how bad the first series of Torchwood is and try to fix it with some better writers or... something. It's hard to go through a lot of these episodes again. I think there's maybe 3 or 4 I'd watch again. 2 of which are the finale. One of which is They Keep Killing Suzie. I realize on this watchthrough that they're a secret organization which is ass-retarded in keeping themselves secret. I also hope that whatever happens with Jack this year on Who carries over back into Torchwood... if he even survives into it.

I wonder if Jack will even appear in the first episode.

Westacular · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Waterloo-ish, ON, Canada

To be fair, Jack's Torchwood cell was also ass-retarded at a lot of other things.

Regarding ideas of temporal flux: it's interesting that the Doctor's problem with Jack is not that he immortal, per se, but rather that Jack is immutable. There is no flux, and no potential for flux. Apparently no amount of physical damage or time travel manipulation short of Rose's Deus Ex TARDIS can affect his existence.
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aderack · Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Location: Brooklyn, NY

There are a lot of small, mostly qualitative details about Torchwood 2. It's supposed to have a lighter tone and more humor. Also more "action", whatever that means. Jack is supposed to be more like Who Jack, instead of Mister Mopey. Plus he gets naked a lot. Supposedly a much more active role for Ianto now. They apparently have a firm direction in which they want to take things. They've added to the Hub set and changed a few things.

On the quantitative end, one episode is to deal with Jack's childhood in the fifty-first century.

Westacular · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Waterloo-ish, ON, Canada

That sounds like progress!

The first season suffered from a feeling of Jack Killing Time, Because Time Won't Kill Jack, treading water in anticipation of what's happening now. Once this is done with, it makes sense that they'd feel more able to chart a proper direction for the series with some long-term character arcs.

Speaking of killing time, I wonder what would happen if Jack encountered one of the Weeping Angels. Unlimited future-potential-energy to feed on! But he won't actually die in the past, so you can't have it!

I'm a bit disappointed Jack hasn't got around to bragging to the Doctor that he unleashed from the rift an immortal 200-foot tall god-monster from before time that feeds on life itself and fed it to death in a paradox that broke reality just a little bit, and that's why "the rift's been active."

Oh, but I suppose he can't do that because then all the kiddies would insist on watching Torchwood and Davies would get in trouble.
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Ashura · Joined: 06 Dec 2006 Location: Far East of Eden

Yeah, it's true. Torchwood as a whole was pretty incompetent. Torchwood is almost like shoving Doctor Who into the enemy's base and making it work without going anywhere. Angel's 5th season was pretty much the same thing, take Angel Investigations -1 and shove them into Wolfram & Hart, and I think they made it work there. Let's hope they learn from season 1, anyway.

Doing some reading, yeah, I see even John Barrowman said it would have more humour and action. I think this is good news; it comes back to what I said earlier about how good dialogue can save a bad episode of Who.

Man, I would love to see what Steven Moffat would do with a Torchwood.

Hopefully they can also work on the production a bit more this year. There are some takes last year that made it into episodes which you know probably would've been better if they could've ran through it three or four more times. From all indications the first series was extremely rushed. It seems less so this year.

When is Sarah Jane Adventures supposed to start, anyway? I never even saw the special. Was it any good?

Also, I just realized Tosh was in a Doctor Who episode.

Lick Meth · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: A constant state of flux

I don't often ponder or try coming up with theories, but sometimes the simplest (simpler?) explanations work best.

The Master business: ignoring the whole Timelord War thing, because I was too young to know anything about it, so I'm disregarding it partly for this theory. Basically, the Master has ended up at the end of time, possibly to avoid the Timelord Wars (I wouldn''t have a clue), but hatches a plan to ship the last of existence's humans to certain doom. However, to carry out this plan with complete conviction, and not to go about at it half-heartedly, he turns himself into the human Yana, also as a way to pass the time whilst stuck at the end of the universe. But with the Doctor returning, and encouraging his watch to act like a voice in his head, he has no reason to remain as Yana and can thus escape, finally. During the time he was human, he'd aged considerably, and his death/resurrection was merely a stroke of luck.

The hand: simply put, he's keeping it purely for the same reason Jack had it: to warn him of the Doctor's presence should he return, and prepare suitably. That's pretty much it, there.

aderack · Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Location: Brooklyn, NY

108 · Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 4:21 pm

Yeah, that was a pretty good episode!

I have not watched the preview for the next episode because I'm a purist like that. Though yeah, I predict something kind of cool!

It would be especially awesome if they "kind of" solve the situation, only to have it smartly come up again at the end of season 4!
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Westacular · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Waterloo-ish, ON, Canada

Ashura · Joined: 06 Dec 2006 Location: Far East of Eden

Seriously, especially after Angel's fourth season was so bad. Getting them out of the Hotel was so good for the show. I always found it kind of funny how Spike always replaces Cordelia whenever she leaves a show.

I just watched Sarah Jane Adventures. Wow, surprisingly good, except for said annoying sidekick, who looks like they conveniently wrote out! The Mr. Smith computer was kind of goofy, but I was surprised just how much better it was than most of Torchwood.

aderack · Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Location: Brooklyn, NY

Westacular · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Waterloo-ish, ON, Canada

I just noticed that CBC aired the first of season 3 earlier tonight. They seem to have finally straightened out their scheduling.

They're also, finally, airing Runaway Bride... tonight at midnight. The surprisingly slick website is worth a quick look:

aderack · Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Location: Brooklyn, NY

Westacular · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Waterloo-ish, ON, Canada

As much as I'd like that -- and like to get more of the Doctor's side of that story -- it would really betray the full-circle-bottle-episode-closure reached in Blink. Make her a recurring character on a spin-off, instead.

BTW, excellent point of Moffat and Cybermen. All of his episodes, so far, have featured a menacing, faceless collective who can't really help what they do: it's just who they are. Cyberwoman demonstrated that this is the most interesting way to handle the Cybermen as villains.
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Ashura · Joined: 06 Dec 2006 Location: Far East of Eden

I noticed the thing with Sally and fans latching. She would make a great assistant I think, but I don't see why people are /expecting/ her to return. They keep talking about how Martha is leaving, too. Eh?

Plus they're talking about 'Oh David Tennant's leaving!!!' again, which is just, fine, whatever. Get over it. If it's true, fine. If it's not, fine. Hard shoes to fill, but it will eventually happen. From all indications he's having the time of his life right now, though, so I don't see him quitting. I also don't see the Doctor being a stigma on his career as some people see. It would be so easy for him to go to America where he's relatively unknown if all else fails. I think he's going to pull a Tom Baker, though.

Also, I want to say: The scene between the Doctor and Jack when he's in the radiation room was so well done. I especially love the part where the Doctor pushes his face against the glass and says 'Jack' in this manner I can't even describe.

Where did the news from Moffat come from? I'll be interested to see what he does with a pre-established creature.

Westacular · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Waterloo-ish, ON, Canada

There's a moment in that conversation where Tennant just randomly sticks his finger in his eye, rubbing something away. The mannerisms like that were an excellent touch to highlight how rarely candid that moment was.
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Baron Patsy · whiny, oversensitive, socially awkward Joined: 05 Dec 2006

aderack · Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Location: Brooklyn, NY

aderack · Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Location: Brooklyn, NY

Casting news.

I, uh, wonder if this will be a Krillitane episode.

Ashura · Joined: 06 Dec 2006 Location: Far East of Eden

That's awesome. I wonder if he'll be using an accent or not. I just read an interview with him where he was asked if he'd ever consider playing the Doctor. He said that hell yes he would do it, but that the bloke who's playing him right now is amazing and isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Also, as per what Jack's purpose is- I'm pretty sure they brought him into Utopia specifically to be a red herring as to who the Professor really is.

My friend who had no notion of the Master at all kept saying 'He's Jack, he's got to be!'

You know, I got to thinking about all the fan hoopla concerning 'Jack is the Master.' The way this scenario works, with the weird time out-of-order thing- Jack could actually be Professor Yana and then the Master and it really wouldn't matter all that much. The end of the universe is so far off, it's almost inconsequential to Jack. I mention this because this is one of the reasons I doubt this is the big realization that happens.

Westacular · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Waterloo-ish, ON, Canada

Yeah, James Marsters sounds ... wrong ... without his fake British accent.

None of that Jack = the Master stuff makes the slightest bit of sense. It's just people reading too much into the Doctor's "you could still be here" comment.

In terms of playing a role in the story, Jack is probably there for a combination of:
-A convenient device for the exposition of all sorts of continuity and Time Lordy issues.
-He can do things no one else can.
-He's immortal and the Master isn't but (judging from The Lazarus Experiment) still wants to be.

From a wider perspective, it also provides an opportunity to explain what happened to him between Parting of the Ways and Torchwood, and to provide closure regarding that, freeing Torchwood season 2 from some of its former constraints.

The year 100 trillion is almost incomprehensibly far-flung.

Let's say that we rescale that to human terms: the life-span of universe is 75 years. That means that the entire history of the universe to date -- roughly 14 billion years -- represents slightly under 4 days. To the dying universe, even the Face of Boe and the Time Lords are just little blips on this scale -- things that lasted for just the first few days after it was born, 75 years ago. That previously ridiculously far-flung future of New Earth in the year 5 billion was still during the first week of this life.
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aderack · Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Location: Brooklyn, NY

There's also a certain parallel in that (if what I'm assuming is correct) the Doctor left both of them behind for a very, very long time and kind of forgot about them.

Yeah, as I get older I keep getting more and more astonished with how quickly human culture developed. A thousand years really isn't that long a timeframe, and there are only a few of them since we developed written language.

Even though I know James Marsters is an American, I'm always thinking of him as a British actor. Like, I expect to see him turn up in ITV series.

That is a good point about the possible misdirection for people who aren't paying attention. There's that whole deal with Jack still probably being around at the end of the universe, and how he should try meeting himself. Of course this doesn't really make sense past that immediate "aha" level. I guess that never stops anyone, though.

Westacular · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Waterloo-ish, ON, Canada

Meanwhile, John Barrowman -- "the American" -- actually is a British citizen, who's spent his first 8 and the last 17 years living there. According to his Wikipedia entry he jumps into his original Scottish accent when in the company of his parents or other Scots.

Man, that makes me wish that he'd been the companion for Tooth and Nail instead of Rose. That would have been fun.
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Ashura · Joined: 06 Dec 2006 Location: Far East of Eden

Westacular · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Waterloo-ish, ON, Canada

You have to admire "I developed the character's accent by imitating how my castmate actually talks" -- either for boldness, or for camaraderie.
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Ashura · Joined: 06 Dec 2006 Location: Far East of Eden

Quick question- Did they confirm if they're doing a Christmas Special this year or not?

aderack · Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Location: Brooklyn, NY

Yeah, Davies has been claiming to be working on the script for months now. I don't know if he just has a work ethic like mine or he's putting a hell of a lot of effort in.

Ashura · Joined: 06 Dec 2006 Location: Far East of Eden

Uh, uh, uh. So I guess we know now how the Master got where he was.

I wonder- Toclophane. Time Lord minds in.. spheres?

Also, the fact that James Marsters is doing an episode of Torchwood. They must have the budget for special guests this year!

It looks like the post-episode rush has hammered Outpost Gallifrey.

aderack · Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Location: Brooklyn, NY

Man, how do you download the things this quickly? If they take me three hours to torrent, it's a good week.

Ashura · Joined: 06 Dec 2006 Location: Far East of Eden

Abuse of the Tardis! Bet you didn't know I was a Time Lord.

Who says I download it though? Fuufuufuu.

Also: Old-Doctor's face reminded me kind of the Face of Boe.

KonamiCode · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: SoCal

Davies' scripts sure do have an awful lot of running, it seems.
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Westacular · Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Waterloo-ish, ON, Canada

Well! Most of the speculations I made were completely wrong. Looks like all that stuff at the end of the universe wasn't important after all... although there is still space for a Face of Boe connection, but I can't even begin to guess what it might be.

And, uh, wow.

So... the Earth's population is currently estimated to be roughly 6.6 billion people. And 90% of that is a nice round 6 billion. Which would be extremely convenient if you just happened to have 6 billion of something!

You could have a field day breaking down all the themes and leitmotifs referenced in the music here. Notably a Martha-tized version of Doomsday!

I wonder if there is some metaphorically significant link between Teletubbies and the oddly childish Toclophane. The episode was certainly setting something up there.
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Baron Patsy · whiny, oversensitive, socially awkward Joined: 05 Dec 2006

That was, uh, pretty bad? Hopefully the next episode will be a bit better.

Looks like next year's buzzword or whatever might be "Civilization Zero". It was on the list of Polly's DVDs in Blink, and on the BBC Doctor Who website there's a little graphic of the Doctor, Jack, and Martha, and behind them is a billboard that alternates between "Vote Saxon", "LazLabs", and an ad for Civilization Zero on DVD.

Edit: So what do you all figure the Toclaphanes (spelling?) were? The people who left for Utopia? I don't know, I get the feeling I'm way off on that.

Actually, the more I think about that, the less it seems to make sense. I honestly don't know. And what's the deal with the Paradox Machine or whatever? It was never really explained. Does it allow the user to mess about with time-lines or something? Maybe they explained it and I just missed it?

I downloaded season one of Torchwood. On the third episode. It's, um. Not particularly good. I had seen the first episode and half of the second before, and just never really had the motivation to watch the rest.

That parody that I posted a link to a page or so back was scarily accurate, from what I've seen so far.

Owen is really odd looking and kind of an obnoxious fuck, but he's probably my favourite character. Jack acts completely differently. I don't much care for him on here, which is odd considering I rather like him on Who. There was a shot in the first episode that just made me crack up. Jack was standing on top of a tall white building, just looking out at the city. The camera revolved around him a few times, and it was accompanied by really horrible music. It just seemed so ridiculous and totally unnecessary.

Ashura · Joined: 06 Dec 2006 Location: Far East of Eden

If you want the Torchwood cliffnotes, pretty much:

Cyberwoman
Small Worlds (only for the Jack's past stuff, otherwise iffy)
They Keep Killing Suzie
Random Shoes
Out of Time
Captain Jack Harkness
End of Days

The rest is kinda eh. Aderack might disagree.

108 · Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2007 12:28 pm

aderack · Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Location: Brooklyn, NY

vf10a · Joined: 04 Dec 2006 Location: UK

aderack · Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Location: Brooklyn, NY

Yeah, I expect that'll make more sense next week. For the moment, though, kinda... ew.

I really appreciate the weight of information packed into this episode. It's just really hard to absorb, though. There's no time to integrate it before they rocket on to the next detail. I kept rewinding and listening to discussions over and over, realizing that I kept glazing over each time it played. Almost like the episode had its own perception filter.

I guess the whole idea of the episode was to smack the audience over the head with "What the fuck was that?!". And in that regard, it certainly delivered.

Oh, something I didn't mention: I actually laughed out loud several times, on first viewing -- sometimes violently and unexpectedly. Most of it was due to Simm, yes.