Doctor Who: Season Six

Yeah, whatever else happens this season I'm glad they're finally departing from the "Doctor and girl and no one else" formula. Didn't Classic Doctor usually have two or three companions at a time?

Also, it would be cool to have a companion who wasn't a modern-day human being for once. I know there's been a robot dog and a Sheena, Queen of the Jungle girl, let's get something like that going.

Can not wait for this to start again, I am in Dr Who withdraw.

Who are the writers this season? I know Neil Gaiman is doing one, which is great news.

The trailer looks good, seems nice and creepy and we get some Gambon, can't wait.

That's quite true. I hadn't realised that!

Nice avatar, by the way.

I am in love with a shot in that trailer of The Doctor standing outside a window looking in, with the TARDIS behind him. There's something eerie yet utterly beautiful about that shot.

Second the love for his new jacket, though I'm not a fan of the plain white shirt he's rocking.

They've had aliens-that-look-human (Nyssa, Turlough, etc), future-humans (Capt. Jack, Zoe, etc) and old-timey humans (Jamie, Victoria, etc), but I do agree that they could start mixing it up again.

I was kind of hoping that Ood Sigma would end up as a companion. But I guess that might cause some problems blending in with, say, ancient Rome.

In a perfect world they'll rope Paul Cornell back in again, instead of Chibnall.
Gareth Roberts seems like a pretty safe bet, given he's written an episode the last four years running.
Any chance on Simon Nye again? Or of them finally using that long-postponed Stephen Fry script?

Uh-oh - a 2-parter from the man who wrote Fear Her? That's faintly worrying. Even Love and Monsters had more going for it than that!

I made the Doctor outside the window pic my wallpaper. Such a great shot. Wish we had it bigger but I will take what i can get.

As awful as "Fear Her" was, I'm inclined to give Graham the benefit of the doubt. As I mentioned in the other thread, there were some writers under Davies who improved this season. Gareth Roberts' episodes were pretty shit, but The Lodger was great, and I also liked Victory of the Daleks.

Having a different showrunner can make a big difference, especially considering how controlling Davies apparently was. And as mentioned...Graham gave the world Life on Mars, so he's earned a bit of slack.

Just noticed this is Moffat's Twitter profile pic...



How about a crossover?

Well, it's not as if Graham can rip Paperhouse off a second time.

Heheeee, I said that with the specific hope that someone would be my hero and screencap that image for me. Way to be a hero, Spike!

I know everyone seems to hate "Fear Her," and while not great, I liked it. I thought "The Idiot's Lantern" was much worse.

You have to be really in tune to the whole history of Doctor Who to appreciate THE IDIOT'S LANTERN. The Doctor in the past would put together these elaborate mix masses of electronics to do these elaborate things. In THE IDIOTS LANTERN he throws together a bunch of electronics to fight the alien, and it turns out to be a Beta max. I thought that was very funny.

I hate fear her, you can really tell it's a "Filler" eppisode. I understand the need to limit budget and such but the Matt Smith eppisode where he is a lodger does the same thing much better.

Maureen Lipman and Ron Cook raise THE IDIOT'S LANTERN over FEAR HER just by showing up.

Agreed. The shot of The Doctor completing the Olympics run with the torch has made me cringe every time I've seen it. Which is twice. Once when it when it aired on television and then again on DVD to check if it was really that bad.

It really was that bad.

The whole second season is pretty limp, honestly. Even "The Girl in the Fireplace" is probably Moffatt's weakest script under Davies. But then the finale is probably the best one written by Davies.

Holy hell.

We gotta figure out a way to edit/streamline these. If every single one is going to be that long, I doubt people will want to read them all.

Interesting review. I found Spike's comments on the traditional American/British Christmas and comparisons to RTD/Moffat's Christmas specials quite thought provoking.

I'd definitely cut down the number of contributors for the season reviews, though. At the moment it's like being inside the mind of CAL.

"She's got over four thousand living minds chatting away inside her head. It must like... being, well... me."

Yeah, it was big. I think Spike will find a way to edit it and keep it under control. Maybe certain people certain eps.

That would probably be best.

Still can't find that stupid teaser. Kind of loving the conspiracy stuff which seems to be going on for next season.

Spike, I don't think there's anything wrong with moving stuff around, compacting it more, and snipping extraneous bits. Maybe people should have a fixed word count.

Great read you guys, shame I missed out on particpating hopefully next time.

Yeah, I doubt we'll get dragged into the full analysis of the series again, but it'd probably still help to have an overall word limit.

Maybe something like a debate format? You get your opening statement and then one "rebuttal," so to speak.

I still say cutting the number of contributors would be the best idea. Having eight or nine people talking about one episode is far too much. It would work much better with four or perhaps five, and allow them room to actually discuss the topics brought up in more depth.

You can be certain that there will be lots to discuss in the opening episode of the season, not only because people will want to talk about Who in America, but there will no doubt be clues as to the season arc in there AND it's the first part of a two-parter. Eight or nine people discussing all of that will result in something similar to what happened here where there just seemed to be too many cooks.

By the way, Xagarath Ankor, I found your thoughts particularly interesting (and I agree with your favourite part of the episode - it was mine also) and look forward to you discussing the new season.

Thank you!


Most of the tag team pieces are four to five reviewers, aren't they?

I have this ready on the digirecorder, but the girl & I were wondering...

We've never seen even a SINGLE Dr. Who episode, and actually became interested to give it a go mainly because we've become severe Moffat fans over the year (with Jeckyll & Sherlock).
So is this episode as good as any to start our Who-oing, or do we risk getting lost in the implicit or explicit back-referencing? From what I've gathered scanning the tagteam review, this seems to have a serious touch of Douglas Adams
I might as well expand on that question: if we were to pick up the series from last season (when Moffat got in charge), will we be able to enjoy it or is it absolutely necessary to have some background in the previous series? Having to wade through 4 seasons seems a bit daunting, and the little I've seen of it in the past didn't do much for me.

I think you could pick up this last season and start off fine.

Yeah, Eleventh Hour is as good a starting point as any. The show explains its two major references (River Song, weeping Angels), whereas the coming season will likelier be heavier on the backplot.

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Yup, I agree. Start with The Eleventh Hour (first episode of the last season) and go from there. It's pretty much designed with new viewers in mind.

Aha! I wonder if there's any significance to the fact that the TARDIS light goes out just as it moves out of shot?

ALSO: How does one delete their posts in these forums? I can't seem to find the appropriate button to get rid of my post above.

Right, thanks for the swift input guys. I'll track that down.

I actually have a *slightly* different take on it. There are a couple of Tennant episodes you should watch first: "Blink", "Silence in the Library" and "The Forest of the Dead". Consider them a prologue--they lay down the most crucial plot threads that are then picked up for this season, and they also, by happy coincidence, provide an excellent introduction to the Doctor. They also happen to be some of the best episodes of the new show, especially "Blink", which stands alone almost perfectly even if you know nothing about the Doctor going in. THEN you can start in with the current season. And no, I personally don't think you're missing much skipping all the other Tennant episodes.

You *might* want to go back and watch "The Impossible Planet", "The Satan Pit", and possibly "Planet of the Ood" before the new season starts, since it looks like it'll be picking up threads introduced in those episodes, but I suspect it's not all that important.

Great review guys, I really enjoy a good ramble such as that.

Caught up on the episode last night and just loved it... the first twist on the Ghost of Christmas Past was fantastic, not something I've seen before in a science fiction film. It's a great use of the Tardis (and something which I think RTD never exploited, you've got a time machine - use it!) - instead of going back in time, things changing and then returning to see how things have changed, there is a continuous feedback loop. We see past and present contemporaneously. It was a relatively simple scene yet brilliantly thrilling and really helped by Gambon's excellent performance.

The futility of trying to change things through time travel is also brought up again, Karzan went from being cold-hearted because he never had love, old Kazran is now just as cold-hearted because he has had love stripped away on the most painful manner. So very tragic.

There were a few interesting things in this episode which I think were a conscious decision to turn the clock back and return to some of the basic principles of the show, something that was evident in series 5 on occasion. Psychic paper and the sonic screwdriver are both introduced as devices to move the plot along. Here Moffat removed Psychic Paper "because it was one lie too big", a great moment, and damaged the other. The sonic screwdriver couldn't unlock the controls and after it was damaged, couldn't unlock the vault. It played a crucial part in the story but not as the quick fix that solves everything and unlocks every door/device or any other convenient get out. By the way, I really loved how the Doctor got the combination to the vault, he does what anyone with a time machine would do - in a beautifully written sequence, one second he's at the lock but Kazran won't know the combination until he's older, in the future old Kazran is calling out the number, the Doctor appears behind him, gets the number then reappears in the past with the number. Beautifully done. I hope this is a sign that the Moffat years will see less "with one bound he was free" stories and more carefully crafted and imaginative stories.

In my opinion it was a great episode. It was a Christmas story, not a Christian story, about the winter solstice, midpoint of winter, "halfway through the dark" and concepts like reconciliation, rebirth and family. I liked the "scientific" explanation of the power of music and song. I think the redemptive and restorative power of music and song is a fundamental element of the script and I like that they chose to use a real singer rather than have an actress miming the song. Jenkins was the perfect choice for Abigail and a surprisingly great actress. She had a slightly other-worldly presence and her voice is sublime. It had to be a singer playing that part and she nailed it.

Don't think so, though that TARDIS is so obviously CG that it hurts. Watch the way Matt's hand magically changes color when it passes in front of the TARDIS.

Thanks for the kind words, folks. It was a lot of fun.

I didn't have a problem with the word count (and I'd be saying that even if I didn't contribute to it) but that is coming from a renowned waffler so...

On a serious note, since there's usually such a lack of depth to this kind of analysis elsewhere, I think this approach is refreshing.