I take it you don't like it then ?

I stuck around 15 minutes of it and went to find some paint to watch dry.

It got marginally better during the second half, and there was on genuinely good scene between Wilfred and the Doctor, but for the most part it was rubbish. John Simm was completely wasted, and turned into some bizarre bouncy-bouncy Tigger-iffic imitation of the Master, and worst of all the whole show appeared to be a 62 minute set up for a horribly painful pun.

Part two looks like it might be better, but I am confident in RTD's ability to completely eff it up by inserting DISTRACTINGLY. DRAMATIC. MUSIC. HERE!!!! Seriously Russel, sometimes less is more.

Just watching part two of Doctor Who and all I hae to say is if you thought the first part was poor...

Time to close the lid on the coffin of Doctor Who and bury it with fond memories of what we had.

I would be interested to hear your views Ron.

Jim

It airs here tomorrow evening, so I'll let you know what I think then.

The biggest thing to bear in mind is that this is the farewell from Russel T Davies.  The episodes that begin in the spring are from the new regime, with Steven Moffat in charge.  This is the man who brought us "The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances", "The Girl in the Fireplace", "Blink", and "Silence in the Library / The Forest of the Dead".  Not to mention Coupling.  I have no worries at all that this finale is stinking up the joint, other than the fact that it is a sad way to send of David Tennant. He deserves much better.

Still, come Easter we have a brand new series from end to end, run by a guy who actually knows how to write.  I'll give Russel T Davies his props, in that he did an excellent job of bringing back the series and making it relevant to a broader audience.  There is no denying that he made very smart choices, particularly with the Eccleston series, that were able to sell the series to more than just the geek crowd.

But Steven Moffat truly lives and breathes Doctor Who.  I have complete faith in his ability to revitalize the show and take it in some interesting new directions.  This is a tectonic shift, on par with the transition from Patrick Troughton to John Pertwee, where the entire cast and production staff have changed over.

Plus, as one of my friends pointed out, it's nice to have a heterosexual male picking out the "dad candy" for the Doctor's new assistant:

There is only one Doctors assistant in my eyes and thats Sarah Sutton who played Nyssa back in the days of Tom Baker / Peter Davidson.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyssa_of_Traken

Oh the memories of meeting her by accident on Oxford Street London back in 1982 and the signed pictures she sent me a few weeks later (I still have them too.)

That is awesome!

Yeah, Sarah Sutton was pretty easy on the eyes.

So, the first act was pretty mediocre. Not as awful as part one, but not great. Once it got to the character stuff, though, I thought it got much better. The whole ending sequence I quite liked, despite it being a lot like watching the end of Return of the King with all the false endings. In the end David Tennant was able to get the farewell he deserved.

Here's to a new decade, and a new Doctor. I am mightily encouraged by the clips I have seen of Matt Smith so far.

As long as I'm here...

I'm not a super-big Dr. Who fan--unlike my daughter who was enculturated back in the Tom Baker days--but I started watching the David Tennant version frequently and then became a fan. I watched the Chris Eggleston's episodes when I came across them, but I can't say they really pumped me up.

The David Tennant episodes seemed so much more energetic, colorful, dramatic and more intelligently plotted. Also...I never was a big admirer of Billy Piper's Rose Tyler. She was okay, but...

I liked Freema Agyeman's Martha Jones character much more...I think she was a better actress and just prettier. Nicer to look at. I enjoyed watching her, I guess.



Yeah, I agree...I think David Tennant's tenure as the the tenth Doctor deserved a stronger conclusion, especially since the inclusion of the Time Lords seemed very tacked-on...not to mention The Master's evil plot to replace everybody on Earth with himself...that's a scheme worthy of Dr. Smith, of Lost In Space.

Overall, though.. the End of Time didn't sour my interest in the Eleventh Doctor.

Martha was definitely awesome. Her season was easily the best of the modern series so far, with the only clunker story being the Daleks Take Manhattan two-parter. (And seriously, enough with the Daleks. Once in a while is cool, but showing up constantly year after year is just annoying. As the saying goes, how can I miss you if you won't leave?). But anyway, back to Martha's season, the writing was really at a creative peak. I just re-watched Human Nature / The Family of Blood last Friday, and it really has some remarkable performances all around. I remember watching it when it first aired, thinking the series just couldn't get any better than that, and then the next week was Blink - which I consider to be hands-down the single best episode in the entire history of the show.

The thing that made Martha so good (besides just not being the Sainted Rose), was that she stood on her own as a competent and complete person. Yeah, she did a fair bit of mooning over the Doctor, but when it came down to it she knew how to take charge of a situation. A great actress, and a great character.

Posted By Ron Miles on 03 Jan 2010 03:50 PM
...And seriously, enough with the Daleks. Once in a while is cool, but showing up constantly year after year is just annoying.

That is one of the main reasons I dislike the new Dr Who -besides not liking one of the "new" doctors so far, each year we have the same adversaries trying once more to take over the earth. Can we PLEASE have a story NOT set on Earth where the Doctor fights to save someplace other than London or Cardiff.

Well, I totally get that RTD specifically made all of Series 1 earth-bound. That was part of his maneuvering to make the show accessible to new viewers. He also made a point of having Rose's family be the kind of characters that would appeal to the Eastenders audience, which worked very well.

I gather that Stephen Moffat is going to be much less earthbound with his stuff. He is in a much better position in that the series is already back and established with a broad audience, so he doesn't have to do as much pandering.

I am looking forward to seeing what the new Tardis set looks like. They specifically blew up the old one in the finale, because when it was originally built it wasn't done with HD cameras in mind. The new series is being filmed all HD, so they needed to build something new that will read well in high def.