Christmas Special Time.

"Minisode" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G17_B4u ... ata_player

Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3KVpvE ... ata_player

Vastra, Jenny, and Strax are back!

_________________

Christmas Special was outstanding.

Clara Oswin Oswald dies. Again. But she's alive again in the future. I think.

Strax and the memory worm made me , and the one word test from Madame Vestra was nice.

Also a new opening and a redesigned TARDIS.

Only 4 months til new episodes.

_________________

There's some good stuff in this special. And if you listen close enough, there are verbal clues aplenty to the anniversary. The big snowball suddenly saying a line from the "5 Doctors". The calling card being a reference to villains from a Troughton story. The Doctor, seemingly living on top of a cloud. Jamison's "Mary Poppins" riff.

The worm is great. Put some glasses on him, and he'd be an old Capt Marvel (shazam) villain.

The three muskateers routine with Vestra, Strax and whatshername is kinda funny too. They'd make for fun guests; might be a little too much for companions.

Up and down, left and right, the best Moffat xmas story thus far.

_________________
Middle Aged Crazy, like Uncle Terry

The Doctor talking about the London Underground and the weakness was a nice touch.

So this could almost be considered a prequel to Troughton's story.

_________________

And so, our question. Oswin was making a souffle (without eggs) and narrating a message about this to her mother. Who's her mother, and more to the point, is her name Clara?

An impossible person, and yet, Mel travels in circles thru time, too. No, I don't want to see her again

_________________
Middle Aged Crazy, like Uncle Terry

i liked the fact that she was useful.... since the series came back the only remotely useful person was the one-off episode with michelle ryan on the sand-planet with the wormhole-making metal stingrays.

during the episode i did have a moment where i was just like "oh fuck, she's probably the next doctor or something" but i think we're far more likely to have something odd/daughterly/etc with the always-sneering river song.

just stay useful.... i know we gotta semi/reset the character to make her a modern mary sue to an extent, just keep her clever and useful and i'm good with it. my recent training with 7th doctor fare has me primed for the fun-bad enjoyment of this show whenever it comes back.

_________________

Oh, my goodness. Sylvester was good, but the people who did the sound recording should be shot. A vast majority of the episodes can't be said to have plots -- more like random occurrence of events. Also, every major character had a musical theme which played whenever they're the main focal point of the scene. Little girls skipping to "London Bridge is Falling Down."

_________________
Middle Aged Crazy, like Uncle Terry

Returns Saturday with The Spoonheads.

This season looks promising.

_________________

You of course have heard about the First Doctor story commissioned? Hartnell character meets Verity Lambert (first Dr Who producer.) To which I say, Doctor sets Lambert up with the premise of a sci-fi show. He shows up as it's lead. Every time he regenerates the actor on the show is said to have left.

Which, is a lot like the Chuck Barris / Gong Show story: a former spy-type hides in plain sight by hosting his own game show. Tying this back to the Doctor doing a "hiding in plain sight" scenario, by starting a show that happens to star himself, it's kind of cute but needs tweaking. To wit: everyone who'd care that that Doctor is missing (and yet there's this TV show about him) would imagine the lead really is the Doctor. Except, it isn't. The guy on the TV is like a "laundered" regeneration. The real guy, hiding in the background, is naturally the Sylvester McCoy Doctor. Who, even when he's forced to portray himself, does the first 2 years as a physical comedian to throw people off the trail. Then he arranges for the worst sound recordings so no one can dope out what's being said.

But remember, in the 30th anniversary show, where he shows up at Totter's Lane again, people recognize him.

_________________
Middle Aged Crazy, like Uncle Terry

I really liked the episode.

Clara is gonna be great I think.

Nice to see continuance from the Christmas special.

_________________

Very promising after the sludge that was the first half of the season.

No kidding.

They should've just written the Ponds off at the end of last series.

_________________

Back to underwhelming. Moffat out. I'm tired of The Quiet Storm Doctor shit. Oh his loneliness and tortured soul can overwhelm monsters, boo hoo. He's turning into emo Peter Parker. Smith and Oswald seem fine, at least I don't think it's their fault, but the longer this dry spell lasts the more suspicious I'll be.

Yeah that has been disappointing.

I miss the Doctor and companion who would always be off on adventures rather than dropping them off after each time. Leave that shit with the Ponds.

_________________

I mean I don't mind cheezy and all. I was okay with Oswald's leaf and probably would have been happier if that's all they used and then we could have skipped the Doctor's weepy "I was the only survivor of the Time War" agony. It worked very well with Eccleston and Tenant made it work, but that's just not in Smith's wheelhouse so it looks forced when he does it.

I haven't got a read as to whether I like Clara or not. The first episode is a plodder, and the second I haven't watched all the way through. Something about her is "impossible," but I haven't yet worked out what that something is...

_________________
Middle Aged Crazy, like Uncle Terry

In a surprise to absolutely no one, Christopher Eccleston declined to participate in the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary.

_________________

yeah, all that homoerotic stuff with barrowman didn't exactly fly with the guy who was the only reason to watch the first GI Joe movie. holy shit, the line "kill anyone that touches her, especially her husband" could only be pulled off by THE FUCKING DOCTOR (that isn't tom baker)

_________________

oh and he'll show up in the end. they're milking it for drama but i don't think he's gonna be that much of an arse.

_________________

Moffat's ability to write her brilliantly?

Don't forget, the head in a box promised us that we're gonna find out at "the fall of the eleventh" just what exactly is up with the oldest question in the universe.... doctor WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO?!?!!?!?!?

_________________

_________________

poor 10ant. he's in every fucking doctor who retrospective on BBCA and like, shit, spies of warsaw? yeah.... seriously i mean..... blargh.

btw matt smith's doctor is starting to annoy me more with his forced mannerisms. idk, i thought hipsterpants had potential but the way he's taken it..... idk it's just weird the way he's all gesticulating with clara and shit.

the doctor needs to be transcendental. see tom baker / christopher eccleston. he only kissed rose cuz he was about to die and she was the only woman within 100k years of him, meanwhile tennant would trade a testicle to be with rose again, and he even got his human metacrisis doctor 10.5 to be off with her in the parallel universe to explain his aging when he came back cuz he wanted to have a FOR SURE WAY TO COME BACK, and even if eccleston doesn't come back.... shit, tom baker didn't come back til he needed a few bucks from the audiobooks, so like, yeah. precedent established.

_________________

I hope the Governor makes a guest appearance for the 50th.

_________________

here speeps lemme break this down as best i can.

tennant/rose = this song

great song, seriously, hit me at a rather impressionable age and did a lot for me in terms of the etymology of my favorite artist.

BUT.....

_________________

tell me this isn't the better song, at least for hte first ~3:27 or thereabouts anyways

it depends what you're out for. in the end we all make concessions to avoid being alone.... but sometimes you just gotta be like "fuck it, i'm dope"

idk, that and the 10ant checklist really got to me after awhile. NOT WHILE I'M HERE!!!! YOU WON'T!!!! steely faced glare and all that.

but yeah, doctor who has become something else that i've grown to not love as much as the earlier stageplay-as-tv-show that i grew to love AFTER i got into nu-who. the doctor is quite subtle and has nuances.... and now those are lost in the way of being a dashing 25-27 y/o action hero.

when they get a ~45 year old guy who has figured out the meaning of life nad just rolls cuz he's pillsbury like that, i'll proly be more !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

_________________

You get action hero, or you get forced goofy. Thank Russell T for the former.

Pertwee was the action hero.

_________________
Middle Aged Crazy, like Uncle Terry

Last two episodes were ok.

Nothing special.

Next week looks promising though as Clara explores the TARDIS.

_________________

TARDIS episode wasn't bad. Was hoping for a bit more though.

Jenny, Vastra, and Strax were back tonight and I enjoyed it ever so much.

_________________

Sub episode was good enough.

Tardsplosion looked like it would be great 30 minutes in but limped to the finish. Still good.

Tonight was just weird, it seemed like a 2 hour episode shoved into one. Plot would jump all over and it seemed a lot was skipped or briefly glanced over. It was a good episode none the less, but it was all over the place.

I guess after watching the classic Doctor Who series you really see the benefit of just having as many shorter episodes as you need in a story arc. Stuffing everything into an hour program is nice and all, but doesn't work sometimes.

I'm just starting to like the 2nd half episodes. Jenny, Vastra and Strax makes everything into a light-hearted romp.

So, a rocket takes off up a stairwell. The people in the stairwell don't appear to be burned; there's no fire damage anywhere. Is this a problem? Sigh

_________________
Middle Aged Crazy, like Uncle Terry