Comments | parma_violets: Doomsday, and Other Sea Shanties

parma_violets

Doomsday, and Other Sea Shanties

Jul 09, 2006 12:58

So I got back in from Pirates of the Caribbean 2: The Curse of Bill Nighy's Beard last night, turned on the TV, and who did I see but Forrest Whitaker? Interesting, I thought. I wonder what he's in? Not that Forest Whitaker is the mark of a good film or anything - he was in Battlefield Earth - but he's always worth a look. And lo and behold, it ( Read more... )

johnny depp, naomie harris, pirates of the caribbean, bad wolf, rose, bill nighy, doctor who, keira knightley, doomsday, daleks, catherine tate, russell t davies, cybermen, david tennant, tracy-ann obermann, pete, orlando bloom, jackie, mickey

Comments 24

jakiri July 9 2006, 14:17:03 UTC

Rose wouldn't have been able to kill them, as they were in the void.

parma_violets July 9 2006, 14:41:16 UTC

Ah, I see. That makes a bit more sense!

cpt_buggernuts July 9 2006, 14:30:14 UTC

What jakiri said. But with a soupscon of self loathing at the fact that I immediately thought it.

I really wish that the last (winding up Rose's story + bloody Tate) scene/s had been left until Christmas. They weren't actually that bad* (and I agree that the voiceover worked very, very well over the shots of the Tyler's travelling) but they made the episode grind to halt, making it feel resolved but anti-climactical in a way I genuinely resent.

*Apart from the Tate bit. Which was, obvo. It was bad with the 'wah wah wah waaaah' wacky sound effects turned up to eleven.

parma_violets July 9 2006, 14:44:48 UTC

I disagree on the first count but not the second. I'd heard stuff in advance about how this episode would end on a cliffhanger and I really didn't want that - I wanted it to feel as resolved as possible to ensure that, come Christmas, the show can keep rolling without Rose. Ending it with Rose sobbing would have just felt like rubbing the audience's nose in the bleakness for me.

The fact that the Christmas special is named after a shit Julia Roberts movie does not inspire massive confidence.

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parma_violets July 9 2006, 15:04:34 UTC

But weren't the Tylers solely created to give Rose some grounding? If so, it strikes me as being entirely fair game to give them a more prominent role in an episode that's meant to be writing Rose out of the series. If you just completely despise Jackie and Mickey, then fair enough. I rather like them; I don't think they're any more antithetical to the concept of Doctor Who than the metaphorical "UNIT family", which was also largely comprised out of people who were a bit silly and only had tenuous connections with the Doctor, but who I was always happy to see turn up anyway.

I'm still not sure how I feel about Catherine Tate's cameo.

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parma_violets July 9 2006, 15:30:37 UTC

The Daleks' time travel abilities have been a feature of the show since the Hartnell years, and were explicitly restated in 'Dalek'. Why precisely the other Daleks didn't try the same trick must remain a mystery, however.

I see your points about the plot holes, but they didn't really bother me when I was watching. The only thing that made me scratch my head a bit was the Cybermen in India, so much so that I really wish they'd just made it a UK-centric invasion. What about when the Cyber-leader told all units to report to Canary Wharf? Did they just march through the sea or something? Those Cybermen, you can't knock their devotion to duty.

Catherine Tate's sketch show is indeed appalling. It does, however, illustrate the power of the media that they've managed to persuade the general public that "Am I bovvered?" is a hit runaway catchphrase, despite the fact that no-one was saying it until TV show hosts, newspaper columnists and the like started repeating it.

londonkds July 9 2006, 15:05:48 UTC

I like to think that the "stupid idots thinking you can reform Cybermen" thing was RTD's dig at the BtVS Spike fans who have been clutching him to their bosom since Dalek.

parma_violets July 9 2006, 15:14:50 UTC

Why is it that every time we're reminded of Buffy in relation to this series, it's as a terrible, terrible warning?

autographedcat July 9 2006, 15:34:13 UTC

Surely when Rose wiped out all the Daleks in our history in 'The Parting of the Ways', she would have noticed a Time Lord prison pod with a million of the buggers in it?

But they weren't in Time and Space, but outside it in the Void Ship. Which of course leads to the wonderment: what else is lurking out there in the void?

parma_violets July 9 2006, 15:42:25 UTC

Mmm, someone else pointed this out to me. This is a big and potentially meaty area for the show to go into; I hope they don't treat it like the Reapers, another Very Big Concept which never got referred to again.