Dr. Who -- It's bigger on the inside!

[Space Cadet]

Garrett, it most definitely was! I wonder how this is going to work? Because when they wrote the library two-parter, I think they were taking it for granted that the 11th Doctor would be played by an actor older than David Tennant. Certain things she said aren't going to gel quite right now.

I heard that they were so sure the next Doctor would be older, right up until the moment Matt Smith walked into the room and read for them . . .

I think I'm going to enjoy this Doctor. One thing though: it looks like they are recycling certain plot elements from earlier seasons rather than coming up with all new ideas. The new companion, although very promising, comes across a bit like what you'd get if you put Rose, Martha and Donna in a blender. With more than a dash of Madame du Pompadour for seasoning. Also, they're really pushing the boundaries these days, huh? Kiss-a-gram.

[Birdhead]

Well, IDK, I think 11 doctors, umpteen billion plots, they can hardly be blamed for recycling a bit - and taken selectively, 'A mix of Rose, Martha, Donna, and Madame de Pompadour' describes practically every woman on the planet. I do wish they'd be a bit more thoughtful about the personal and professional lives of the women in question, mind you, but clearly they feel that for someone to want to drop everything and go away with the Doctor they have to basically have no life/future/prospects or be seriously disatisfied with their life in other ways (Martha is really the only exception to this in New Who. <3) Of course, this is nonsense and IMO leads to some unfortunate Doctor/Companion dynamics.

Re: the Doctor getting younger: I was reading recently (and if it was in this thread I'mma look stupid but I don't think so) that the actors playing the Doctor have gotten younger with each regeneration, with the exception of one of the earlier doctors (Three, maybe?). It's interesting to think about. While IMO this is to do with the way media has changed, it could be handwaved curiously, i.e. there's a reason Time Lords get younger and younger.

[Kathy Li]

...Also the shot of the wedding dress at the end - like, haven't we already seen companions choose between the bf back home and the Doctor? And isn't that also a *really boring* idea? Insert quiet feminist scream.

But. Amy deliberately asked if he could get her back before tomorrow. As in, she can take a break "for free", and get back in time to get to the church. In theory. Naturally, she also knows the Doctor's rubbish at targeting a time to get back to her. Poor, poor Rory. But in this case, it's also not necessarily that Amy's choosing between the bf and the Doctor, as much as the bf's been a second-best sub for the Doctor all along. (e.g., "You even made me dress up like him!" and Rory being a nurse, rather than a doctor).

For me the coolest part, actually, was the appearance of Annette Crosbie (this cannot possibly be a spoiler to anybody younger than me, as you probably have no idea who Annette Crosbie even is. If you've ever seen that old Cinderella movie, The Slipper and the Rose, she was the fairy godmother in that). I've been waiting to see if she'd appear ever since Richard Wilson (who played her other half in One Foot in the Grave showed up in "The Empty Child" ("...are you my mummy?")). My personal pet theory is that now that Moffat's in charge, he's going to people the series with as many Scottish actors/characters as he can.

[Birdhead]

But. Amy deliberately asked if he could get her back before tomorrow. As in, she can take a break "for free", and get back in time to get to the church. In theory. Naturally, she also knows the Doctor's rubbish at targeting a time to get back to her. Poor, poor Rory. But in this case, it's also not necessarily that Amy's choosing between the bf and the Doctor, as much as the bf's been a second-best sub for the Doctor all along. (e.g., "You even made me dress up like him!" and Rory being a nurse, rather than a doctor).

I just fundamentally have a problem with a) all the women getting married all the time - she's like, <i>twelve</i> - women getting married for the wrong reasons (substitute for the Doctor, if he is, which I really hope not), ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY ugh she's in love with the Doctor? Seriously? Her only experience of him is that he's completely unreliable and yet she'll go away with him on her wedding eve? Ughhhhhhhhh., the idea that a boyfriend/husband can or should function as a substitute for a fulfilling life...

Also and this is going outside the spoiler tags because it's an Important Message: Nurses are not second rate doctors. Not at all, not even a little bit. They do a job that is equally as important, equally vital, and quite, quite different. (And underpaid. For the record.)

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

Going off-topic for the thread, but on-topic for the forum -- is "fear death by water" an oracular comment regarding turning yourselves into whales, or just a random outburst?

[Kathy Li]

Also and this is going outside the spoiler tags because it's an Important Message: Nurses are not second rate doctors. Not at all, not even a little bit. They do a job that is equally as important, equally vital, and quite, quite different. (And underpaid. For the record.)

Yes. Good point and sorry if someone was getting the wrong generalized idea off my post. But Moffat made the specific point in Confidential that Rory had attempted to become a doctor and hadn't been able to cut it, as opposed to those who choose it as a vocation. This is television, not reality. We watch it because it is not reality, and most of us can tell the difference.

And I also think that Amy agrees to go with the Doctor because she knows it's a screwed up emotional tangle and wants to straighten it all out before she does anything permanent. It's too early to be making pronouncements on what a character "represents" when we barely know them, and haven't seen their storylines/characters play out yet. You're sounding a lot like those who were pronouncing hellfire upon Dollhouse for not fitting in with their PC "oughttas" and assuming that the Dollhouse was implied by the writers to be a good thing on the basis of the first episode alone. Just saying.

[Birdhead]

Going off-topic for the thread, but on-topic for the forum -- is "fear death by water" an oracular comment regarding turning yourselves into whales, or just a random outburst?

I always read it as a joke about June (summer, more swimming, etc - i.e. there's a June rush for fearing death by water.) With the extra layer that oh hey, Nita and Kit are about to risk their lives underwater. But IIRC, that quote is from the phonecall to T&C in DW, so they're already worrying about death by water! I think Peach is just being a jerk. An oracular jerk, but a jerk.

@Kathy: I didn't watch the Confidential, so thanks for clearing that up (IMO Moffat is a bit confused about nurses, doctors, and which role is more stressful... but I suppose I can hardly tell him so. Unless he's a big ole ego-googler, in which case, Steven! Get outta here.) On the other hand, nurses are underpaid precisely because there is a perception that nurses are second-rate doctors, and people don't just get that perception from nowhere, so I'm not sure I accept that there's television (fake) and life (real) and we can all tell the difference and nobody ever gets the wrong idea - even subconsciously - from television. For one thing, I for one wouldn't watch television (or read a book) if I didn't get something out of it: entertainment, sure, but there has to be some kind of perceived truth there, right? There is always something meaningful about the media we watch.

And for another thing, we are affected subconsciously by what we watch, just as we're affected by anything. Just look at implicit association tests. Everyone should do these every now and then because they are revealing in the extreme. For example: I live in a country where the immigration from African countries is very low, to the extent that I'm not sure that I've ever interacted face-to-face with someone of African descent or origin. I certainly haven't had a meaningful interaction of that kind. But when I take the Race IAT, I get a moderate preference for white faces over black faces. Where does this come from? At least in part, I believe it comes from the American television I watch. This stuff does affect us. If we watch a whole lot of medical drama and the nurses are usually women, we believe that nursing is women's work. If we watch a whole lot of drama where nurses are drop-out doctors, that does start to affect us.

As for prejudging a character. If we hadn't ever seen any Steven Moffat episodes before (or if people talking about the Dollhouse premise had never seen a Joss Whedon show before), that would have a bit more oomph. But actually I had seen a Joss Whedon show before, so I could predict certain things: snappy dialogue, excellent plotting, extremely likeable and compelling good guys and bad guys, very good looking women who punch people in the face, slightly less good looking men with verbal diarrhoea, and storylines that aim to be ambitious about women and question sexism without always managing it. Given all of that, it wasn't dumb to point out that there was a lot to be concerned about in the Dollhouse premise, and I do think Joss fell down on it sometimes. I think he managed it more than he fell down, but my opinion is not universal and for every moment where November kills her rapist, there's a moment where the audience is supposed to feel sympathy for Topher. You know? My point here is that when you're familiar with somebody's body of work, you can make certain assumptions and extrapolations about that work, and it's not really fair to say 'It's OK to be excited for the new Bryan Fuller show, but it's not OK to be concerned about the Dollhouse premise.' Because both of those emotions come from the same place.

Anyway, now that this thread is really off-topic. You're right: maybe I'll really like Amy. I LOVED Donna, and I didn't think I was going to at all. However, I am B O R E D bored with Companion/Doctor/Fiance love triangles, and I reserve the right to think that I'm probably going to find this one boring and borderline offensive as well. I also reserve the right to say that I think there's something problematic about three out of four Companions being people who aren't doing anything fulfilling and meaningful, women who look to the Doctor to make their lives meaningful. That's a problematic trope. Women shouldn't look to men - even men as terrific as the Doctor - to make their life meaningful, just like women shouldn't look to children to make their lives meaningful. Also, I will point out that when Rose and Donna became independently powerful, i.e. gained the power to make their own lives meaningful, they got kicked out of the Tardis. This is one reason why Martha's ending is actually sort of terrific - she left the Tardis to find self-fulfilment herself, independently. (And she did. Martha on Torchwood? Martha in Unit? SO badass.)

And then when we revisit Donna and Martha, one of the reasons - in fact the *only* reason for Donna - given that we know they're successful is that they're about to get married. About to Get Married is apparently shorthand for Meaningful Life. They made it, they got a boyfriend! I think that's a ridic trope.

Anyway, whatever, I could write a thesis about this stuff but I can't be bothered. However, I just don't accept that I'm not allowed to draw conclusions from the episode. :-/ All this material is in there and it's all packaged with the leftovers from the last four seasons. You're welcome to disagree with me about the meaning and about my interpretation (obviously), but I kind of don't think it's fair to say that I shouldn't be annoyed by some of the stuff I saw or that I shouldn't say what I think.

ETA b/c I feel the need to defend myself: I did love the episode and I'm super-excited for the upcoming season (hey, another way I'm judging the show from the first episode, she said, pointedly). It's just that one shot sort of made me roll my eyes and want to scream.

[alla]

Yay for streaming, cos my download has been ridiculously slow... I really enjoyed the ep Its good to have some new Who back on TV (even if it is without David Tennant - ok, I know, I know, no point moping about him not doing it anymore, and I've had a year to adjust to the idea, and I shouldn't be comparing etc., but *sigh* I'm gonna reaaaaaly miss the grin...). Part of me wishes that they'd keep doing books and audiobooks with 10, but i guess things have to move forward.

I liked the beginning with Amy as a little kid (I wasn't expecting it), although the obsession that she forms with him in a matter of minutes is a little... scary isn't quite the right word, and its neither is disturbing, because you can see that she's looking for an adult role model who is actually fun (from the way she talks about her aunt). As for running off with the Doctor the night before her wedding, she obviously believes that he'll have her back on time - or she doesn't care. And maybe he will - there's a synopsis of a later episode in the series (Amy's Choice), which describes a situation "5 years later". .

I found a shiny piece of merchandise the other day: http://www.realtimelords.com/checkout.doctors.coat.html I'm gonna get it for my fiance for his birthday (and anniversary, and christmas all rolled into one) present He's grown out of his old trench coat, and wants another one - we both think that that one is too awesome to pass up.

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

I found a shiny piece of merchandise the other day: http://www.realtimelords.com/checkout.doctors.coat.html I'm gonna get it for my fiance for his birthday (and anniversary, and christmas all rolled into one) present

Eep. Considering Ael stole my trenchcoat to dress up as Ten last Halloween, I'd better not let her anywhere near that site. I DON'T HAVE 300 DOLLARS FOR A COAT!!!!!

[Birdhead]

Eep. Considering Ael stole my trenchcoat to dress up as Ten last Halloween, I'd better not let her anywhere near that site. I DON'T HAVE 300 DOLLARS FOR A COAT!!!!!

On the plus side, at one point when I was looking it was relatively cheap to acquire Jack's RAF jacket from military surplus stores!

[illiriam]

So, I've only seen several episodes of Doctor Who, so I can't claim a fan-girl status. But while I was looking for toy patterns to knit or crochet, I came across this, and thought of you guys, who can claim fan-girl and fan-boy status.

This is a pattern for the tenth doctor, and it is a cute little doll to crochet. So if any of you are crafty, and looking for something to do while watching a marathon, good luck!

EDIT: So right after I submitted this I found the ninth doctor and a Rose Tyler doll. There were more of the other doctors, but they looked a little too animated and squat, not like a doll or a person.

[kk]

I'm watching the 1960's Doctor Who episodes currently. (In other words, I know what most of the doctors look like, recognized the fifth doctor in HW after a while, and have seen short clips of various episodes from some of the seasons and series... But I pretty much have no idea what anyone's talking about. XD I know who Susan, Ian, and Barbara are! :P)

Anyway, I looked on Ravelry.com and found some cute Doctor Who-theme knit and crochet projects. There are a few crochet patterns for Daleks, and they look pretty fun. Some of them are 3D-type plushies, and others are just charts for knitting or crochet. (I can't really link to the patterns, because you have to be a member to view them. But sign-up is free, and it's an awesome website...)

[Lazy Leopard]

A friend at the monthly London "Tun" fan meet yesterday evening pulled a knotted cyberman (and another half-made) out of her bag. Last month (or maybe elsewhere a short while ago) it was daleks...

[Kathy Li]

Bump! Just a reminder that we're back in the TARDIS come Saturday. And this time, the UK and USA are getting the show simultaneously!

And while I can't imagine anybody who cares hasn't heard, I still feel like mentioning that episode 4 was written by Neil Gaiman.

[Stellazira]

I'm looking forward to the Easter special.